Thread: Alarm Clock

when I wake up I'm already thinking about something else [/b]

Are you saying you are already awake when you hear your alarm clock?

Whatever...

Some suggestions:

Get a new alarm clock that sounds different - so you can start some new associations (rather than 'Oh there's that beeping - that means I start thinking about the day ahead' - instead 'Oh there's that ringing - that means I start writing down my dreams.&#39

If you have the technical resources - record an alarm call (e.g. a tape player pluged into a timer switch) that says 'Dreams? Dreams? Dreams? Dreams?' etc

Set your alarm clock earlier, perhaps much earlier (like 2 hours) then you will still be a little sleepy (less likely to start racing into the day ahead?) and you can also try WBTB/WILD.

So its the first thing you see when you wake:
Put your dream diary in front of your alarm clock - with a pen in the page ready to go.
Put a sticker on your alarm clock saying 'Dreaming?'

What about using a lighter alarm? I use the one on my cell phone, and it isn't as jarring. It helps with this. Can you wake from a softer sound? A watch alarm perhaps?

Thanks for the advice, both of you. I'll try it out this weekend and find out what works :-)

If you can afford it.. I highly recommend getting an "Invisible Clock".

This small clock can be set to vibrate or beep or both. There are three vibration levels and you can set up to 12 alarms!

I often use the vibration setting on the highest level, wrap the small clock in a face towel and simply lay the clock next to my body.

The vibration isn't "jarring" and another plus to a vibrating clock is that it doesn't disturb anyone else when it goes off (not even my husband who is laying right next to me)!

Below are a couple of places you can get an Invisible Clock:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Invisible-Clock-II-Por...1QQcmdZViewItem

http://www.buddhasplace.com/Merchant2/merc...ory_Code=Clocks

There is something I've been playing around with... havent REALLY gotten to test it out because I've woken up on my own before the clock for the last few days (which is nice, but when I go back to school on tuesday we'll see if it keeps up. Probably not). I find a song I like with a nice smooth non-lyrical intro, so far I've used Linkin Park - Session and AFI - Prelude 12/21 and I chop off the intro (remove the first few words from the AFI song) and set it to fade out and drop the volume by 3dB. Then I insert 4 minutes of silence, and insert another copy of the faded-out intro but this time there's no volume drop, another 4 miutes of silence, and then the song at full volume.

It goes something like this:

Intro(quiet)...Fadeout............................ .Intro(normal)....Fadeout......................... .......whole song

What I hope will happen is I'll wake up to the song, then wonder why it stopped, then realize that I edited it and remember why. The beauty of this system is that I dont have to get out of bed to turn the alarm clock off (I assume that the four minutes will be sufficient for me to re-create my dream and turn off the clock so I can write it down in peace) and since there are no lyrics they don't invade my head and kick out the dream memory.

Obviously you'd need some mp3 editing software and a cd-alarm clock (I think some mp3 players do it too) but if it goes well I'll let you know. I can send you my edited mp3's if you want, I plan to go through my music collection more fully and find some more.

Huh, tell youself "I'm not going to worry about my day now, lucid dreams and dream recall are now my prriorities". You should be able to realx and think just about the dreams eventaully. And I reccomnd a watch alarm if you can wake by it. It is less noisy and will turn off by itself, so you don't have to worry about it. It will just semi-wake you, and then you set your intention to only think of your dreams.

This may seem strange but I've used this way to slowly wake myself up so I'm not immediately up. I like the half asleep feeling you get in the morning.

Set your alarm earlier than you usually would, turning the volume to a lower setting than normal. This way, when it goes off, you sort of wake up but sort of don't, putting you in a state where you're "awake dreaming". I find it's best to lay in bed for a while and my dreams just come back to me. This could be just the way I react to it and may do nothing for you except aggravate you because you're alarm just sits there, being on the whole time.

A lot of suggestions are better than none though right? ....right?