The Dream Schedule: Help needed!
Hey everybody!
I'm looking for help and information about sleep cycles, REM sleep stages, the circadian rhythm, and anything else regarding the dream schedule. With your help, I plan to create a resource for novice Lucid Dreamers to help them better understand and develop their personal dream schedule
I've been digging around for detailed information about sleep cycles, and have found a lot of conflicting information. I myself am fairly confused about when to wake up and attempt Wake Initiated Lucid Dreams -- for awhile I thought I had it understood, but after consulting many different sources, I've been unable to find a consensus or resource on how do develop my dream schedule.
With your help, I plan to develop a generalized "average person" sleep chart that basically outlines when REM stages typically occur, and when the best times to attempt various techniques are, such as denoting best times to wake up / return to bed for WBTB, have your CANWILD technique alarm go off, attempt a WILD, etc.
Everybody's dream schedules vary, so I think it's important to develop methods and techniques for novice Lucid Dreamers to more accurately discover their own personal REM stage timing, and how to develop their own personal "dream schedule".
=== /Intro ===
Okay, let's get started, shall we?
One thing that most sources agree on, is that a sleep cycle is 90 minutes long. That gives an average sleeper about five sleep cycles, consisting of various sleep stages. The most important sleep stage for us, is the REM stage of course, because REM is the stage that we experience vivid dreams.
REM sleep is apparently at the end of each cycle. The first REM stages of the night are the shortest, (5 - 10 minutes say most sources), and the last REM stages are the longest (30 - 60 minutes according to most sources).
I drew this chart based on the above description I keep hearing.
http://a.imageshack.us/img580/3348/sleepchart1.png
This chart just seems off. These aren't times I really expected. I want your help in developing a much much better, more accurate, and more useful chart.
It is my understanding that you basically cannot lucid dream unless you're in a REM stage. A question I have is, what happens when you WBTB? Does your biological clock ignore the fact that you're awake, or does it put the sleep cycles on pause until you return to bed? Or does it sort of do a little bit of both? If I stay up all night until I'm supposed to have my last REM cycle of a night's sleep, and try a WILD, can it be successful because I'll be in a REM stage? Is the body more flexible about this kind of stuff? I've I'm within say, 20 minutes from the beginning or end of a REM cycle, and I attempt a WILD, will my body/brain just decide, "aw hell, close enough amirite?" and just go into REM anyways? Or is it more mechanical then that? These are details that are very elusive to me. A lot of people have the mentality that to learn to WILD, you just wake up practically any time during the night and wing it. That doesn't sound like a plan for success at all -- REM stages look like pretty narrow windows to me.
Another aspect I'm not sure about: are sleep cycles always 90 minutes? Some sources claim that they are all 90 minutes, others seem to portray only the later sleep cycles to be 90 minutes, and that the length of a sleep cycle is quite variable. One source said the first REM stage started 70 minutes into sleep (which is the only source that indicated the first REM cycle to be so long as 20 minutes), and another stated the first REM stage started at 90 minutes. If the latter is true, that then indicates the first sleep cycle is longer than 90 minutes, because REM lasts for 5-10 minutes, and it takes a few minutes to exit REM, according to yet another source. We'd be looking at a 100 minute first sleep cycle. Perhaps the first sleep cycle appears extended because some sources don't count the first stage of NREM as a part of the sleep cycle, because it's a transitional phase that is only seen when you first fall asleep at night -- I read something about that. Maybe the 90 minute intervals start after a 10 minute transitional phase? I've seen a number of sleep graphs, and many of them seem to disagree with each other, and also disagree with the written information they provide. A lot of the graphs seem do display the sleep cycles being variable lengths... the whole thing creeps me out. Even small inaccuracies, of say, 10 minutes, when multiplied by multiple sleep cycles, can throw off your WILD attempt by like 40 minutes or so, which is more than enough to put you out of REM.
I just think it's important to work out a solid understanding of sleep architecture, and turn it into a resource for all the novices that are as confused as I am. As a novice lucid dreamer pursuing the WILD technique, I feel like every WILD attempt I make is a total shot in the dark.
As for developing personal dream schedules -- I figure everyone's "sleep architecture" is a little different. We need a developed technique for discovering one's own sleep architecture. My current idea is to try to naturally wake up right after every dream you have, and record the time. Do this for several days on a stable sleep schedule, and average out the results to determine your own probable REM stage times. As a web developer, I'd like to build a web app to serve as a utility for calculating ideal times for various techniques, perhaps generating personalized dream schedule graphs and whatnot.
Thank you for reading, and if you have any insight, material, or personal experiences, that are relevant, please to share! I'm all ears.
- Chase, The Enthusiast.
