Thread: How do I maintain critical thinking throughout the night from the beginning?

Originally Posted by Jacob46719

Is there a tech for that?

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The higher your self awareness is during the day, the higher it will be in dreams

Ezzo

Originally Posted by Jacob46719

Is there a tech for that?

Since the part of the brain that governs critical thinking actually becomes inactive while we sleep, the most effective way to become more critical in our dreams, is actually to wake up and go back to sleep. This can be done either through WBTB or snoozing.

When I got the time I usually fall asleep and then have multiple alarms to wake me up over and over and I go back to sleep, what happens then is that I fall asleep and wake up and as I wake up I deprive my mind of REM sleep and at the same time activate the critical center of the brain (since I have woke up) and then I go back to sleep and achieve a REM-rebound which means that I instantly return to rem-sleep and dreams because the brain try to compensate for the loss of REM. Then I keep doing this over and over and what happens then is that I become more critical and more deeply into the dream each time. Until I just experience a dream and think "Well that is strange, this must be a dream." The same result is achieved through the traditional Wake back to bed, but what I described is kind of like turning those effects up a notch.

But this is all happening in the later night or early morning.

What I use to become more aware during the early stages of the night, is meditation. Meditation I believe is delaying the shutdown of critical system of the brain and therefore I can fall asleep and still experience higher degrees of critical thinking in the early REM. And meditation is also just practical and a peaceful state to be in, instead of the unconscious non-aware state.

So in short: For the early stages of the night: Meditation, later stages if you have time and want to be fancy: Rem-deprivation + Rem-Rebound (and manually activating the critical center).

Those are the two ways I can think of, but there are probably more.

Sweet critical dreams.

This sounds like a very good technique, but there is maybe a price to pay by doing that.
I read several scientific studies about REM and N-REM sleep deprivation and interruption.
I couldn't read all the one I wanted to because it was not free, but in one of theme (I didn't note the link, sorry), It appears that when you do multiple REM sleep interruption, the night after REM sleep is interrupted by waking state at the moment you artificially interrupted it the night before.
So it seams that this REM sleep interruptions tend to modify the REM sleep schedule for the following nights.

I presume this technique must be tried not too often.

I personally use my RemDreamer pro sometimes, and depending on the deepness of my REM sleep and the different sensibility of the REM detector + setting of the visual/beep/audio message, it makes me ask my self if I am dreaming in the dream, especially if it has awoken me up several times prior to that.

REM sleep interruptions are sometimes a good help for Lucid Dreaming.

Originally Posted by Kaan

It appears that when you do multiple REM sleep interruption, the night after REM sleep is interrupted by waking state at the moment you artificially interrupted it the night before.
So it seams that this REM sleep interruptions tend to modify the REM sleep schedule for the following nights.

Perfect. It's what I need when I can't use an alarm.

Yes my experience confirms those studies. One time I was playing video games without getting any sleep for one night, and the next night I dreamt at the start of the night. But the sleep interruption isn't possible every night. I have tried to make the timer thing consistently, but it usually is a once a week thing. But hey a lucid dream once a week by choice is more than enough.

Oh nice a RemDreamer! Would love to try out one of those.

Lucid dreaming in itself by the way isn't something sustainable either, I always have a special kind of headache after a long lucid dream. So everything must be done with moderation.

Originally Posted by MasterMind

Since the part of the brain that governs critical thinking actually becomes inactive while we sleep, the most effective way to become more critical in our dreams, is actually to wake up and go back to sleep. This can be done either through WBTB or snoozing.

When I got the time I usually fall asleep and then have multiple alarms to wake me up over and over and I go back to sleep, what happens then is that I fall asleep and wake up and as I wake up I deprive my mind of REM sleep and at the same time activate the critical center of the brain (since I have woke up) and then I go back to sleep and achieve a REM-rebound which means that I instantly return to rem-sleep and dreams because the brain try to compensate for the loss of REM. Then I keep doing this over and over and what happens then is that I become more critical and more deeply into the dream each time. Until I just experience a dream and think "Well that is strange, this must be a dream." The same result is achieved through the traditional Wake back to bed, but what I described is kind of like turning those effects up a notch.

But this is all happening in the later night or early morning.

What I use to become more aware during the early stages of the night, is meditation. Meditation I believe is delaying the shutdown of critical system of the brain and therefore I can fall asleep and still experience higher degrees of critical thinking in the early REM. And meditation is also just practical and a peaceful state to be in, instead of the unconscious non-aware state.

So in short: For the early stages of the night: Meditation, later stages if you have time and want to be fancy: Rem-deprivation + Rem-Rebound (and manually activating the critical center).

Those are the two ways I can think of, but there are probably more.

Sweet critical dreams.

I can confirm that technique, as it has happened to me quite a few times (when I snooze about 5-6 times before work because I am lazy) but it never dawned on me to USE it strictly for the induction of lucid dreams. It's brilliant! I will surely be trying that out this week to see what kind of results I reap. Thanks for sharing that MasterMind

I don't know if this happens with everybody else, but when I started taking notes about dreams I had on each awakening during the sleep period, I found myself naturally falling into a rhythm of going to sleep and then waking up after most of my REM periods. So now I go to sleep, progress through a sleep cycle, have a dream, and almost always automatically wake up after it. This way I get lots of opportunities per night to note what just happened (great for recall), regather my self-awareness, and keep a reminder on my mind to recognize the next dream as I fall back asleep. I don't have to lose too much sleep or mess myself up with alarms.

Because of battery getting low, I set my Rem-Dreamer's sensitivity to his max level and this night, between 4AM and 8AM it went off 25 times.
The message I recorded (in french) was "is this a dream?" but in french it takes twice more time to say it. ( Est-ce que ceci est un reve?)

Since the sensitivity was at 9/9, a lot of the 25 times, it woke me up when I was in N-REM, because I was just moving my head or rolling up, but it also happened several times that my recorded voice woke me up from REM sleep.
I knew that I was near REM either cause I just remembered a dream, either cause the idea of moving my hand until my mask to press the RC button (to add 10 more minutes of stand by) was a real challenge (which means that Rem Atonia was still around).
So basically I had got several occasions to WILD/DEILD but didn't know what was the best anchor to use at this point.

What I am trying to manage these last nights is to focus on what I can see (as I am not supposed to see anything since my room is in the dark and I have my mask in front of my eyelids).
It happened few times that I start to see something and I know by having experienced this several times in the past that from this point I could enter in the dream if the REM sleep pressure is strong enough.
What I also try sometimes is to imagine some movements, (Raduga's technique) and alternate the type of movement in cycles (for exemple imagining doing bicycle for 5 seconds, then imagining walking....)
For now I didn't manage to do it excepted if I use galantamine (but I try to limit my use of this).
I also dreamed about LD sometimes this night thanks to the RemDreamer.


@Mastermind : Do you manage to achieve WILD with your snooze technique or is it always by understanding you just entered a dream (DILD) ?
And if yes (WILD) , what is your favorite technique to re enter into the dream? in other word, what is your anchor? visualization, movements, mantra?

Originally Posted by Kaan

@Mastermind : Do you manage to achieve WILD with your snooze technique or is it always by understanding you just entered a dream (DILD) ?
And if yes (WILD) , what is your favorite technique to re enter into the dream? in other word, what is your anchor? visualization, movements, mantra?

Yes I do and it can either be a WILD entry or DILD awakening. My favorite entry is kind of hard to explain because when I time it just right my awareness and motivation works a little differently. But to keep it simple we'll call it a vivid thought. Basically what happens is that I feel that I am somehow more connected to my thoughts than usual and I just observe where my thoughts are going. And by thoughts I mean imagery of something. For example I can think of a farm and then suddenly I am just there. There is no big fancy transition it just happens in an instant and it's one of the coolest feelings in the world.

But my rational is, if I feel a different awareness upon awakening and feel that my thoughts are more vivid, then I'll just enter with ease. And if you are worried that you don't know how that different feeling upon awakening feels like, I can just say:

If you are in it you will know. Just like you can't exactly describe to a sober person what being drunk feels like, this different state of awareness that I talk about can't really be described with words either.

But if I wake up and feel nothing then I have low exepctations because most likely nothing will happen.

Hope that helps you Kaan.