CAT Tutorial

Written by ninja9578

CAT

CAT stands for Cycle Adjustment Technique and relies on the circadian cycle and a mild REM rebound. The basic idea is that by waking up early every other day you loose REM, which produces a rebound as well as train the mind to wake up earlier, which makes you more aware of your surroundings.
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Background

This technique was pioneered by Daniel Love in 2004, making it one of the newest techniques. He did research in the UK and found that this technique could produce up to four lucid dreams every week.

Preparation.

In order to do a the CAT technique your sleep schedule must be regular to start out with. This means a fairly stable bed time as well as a regular wake time. This is one technique where it is recommended that you wake via an alarm clock.
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Cycle Adjustment

For the first week of the CAT technique it is unlikely to have any lucid dreams because your sleep cycles are being adjusted. For the first seven days the dreamer must set his or her alarm to go off 90 minutes before they usually get up. This trains the brain to wake up at this time. This causes the brain chemistry to go into awake mode 90 minutes earlier, and will be used to increase chances of lucid dreaming later in the technique.

During the 90 extra minutes that you are awake it is important to do reality checks. You should do them very intensively, perhaps one every five minutes. This helps the brain know that during the early morning hours, it may be asleep. This should eventually become habit and will carry over into your REM rebound dreams.

It is recommended that you do something that is brain intensive during this time as well, which will help the brain be as active as possible during your rebounds. When the 90 minutes are up, go about your day as normal, but don't go back to bed or nap.

How to CAT.

Now that your cycle has been adjusted, it is time to inject REM rebounds and throw off the cycle again.
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The Technique

Every other day before bed, prepare your mind to wake up 90 minutes early again, it is important that you not deviate from your normal routine. This helps trick the mind into thinking that it will need to get up 90 minutes early again, even though your alarm will be set to go off at your normal wake up time.

Now, because your brain has been reprogrammed to start waking up 90 minutes early, it will do so. The brain chemistry will act as if you had gotten up, making you more alert and aware. This will help the dreamer recognize dream signs.

The brain has also gotten used to doing lots of reality checks during this time and the habit should be carrying over into your dream.

If you wake up during this extra 90 minutes of sleep it is important to stay in bed. Try going back to sleep or perform a WILD. Don't get out of bed until that 90 minutes of extra sleep is done, this helps keep your cycle regular. You may also want to perform a reality check at this time, as it may be a false awakening.
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WILD-CAT

During the days that you sleep in, you may choose to set your alarm to wake you up early anyway and WILD back to sleep. Because of REM rebound and your improved brain chemistry, you should be able to WILD very quickly. The DEILD method may also be used here.
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Won't I Lose Sleep?

Yes, and it is not recommended that you sleep in any days. The occasional day of extra sleep is alright, but too often and it will throw off the cycle. It is recommended that to alleviate the possibility of sleep deprivation, you simply go to sleep 45 minutes earlier each night, however not during the initial cycle adjustment period.
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Readjustment

If the CAT technique is to be used for a long period of time it is a good idea to re-calibrate your internal clock every few months and redo the cycle adjustment phase of waking up early for a week straight without going to bed earlier.

Pros.

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Reliable

In Daniel Love's experiments 8 out of 10 students reported a jump in the number of lucid dreams that they had. It can produce up to four lucid dreams every week.
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Logical

Because your internal clock expects you to wake up, the logic centre of the brain turns on. This makes the dream far more logical and clear.
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Recall

Because you are coming from a REM rebound, you are likely to wake directly from the dream without delay, this gives you the best recall.

Cons.

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Loss of Sleep

For an entire week you are losing 90 minutes of sleep every day, this amounts to 10.5 hours of sleep loss. During the actual technique you can adjust your bedtime, but on every other day you will be sleep deprived.
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Fragile

Because it depends so heavily on an uninterrupted internal body clock, missing a day or two will force you to re-calibrate your clock and go back into the adjustment phase.

Other Useful Links.

CAT: Cycle Adjustment Technique
The CAT Method