Lucid Timer?

Quote:

Originally Posted by r2d2651

Okay well I'm using the saltcube timer method with my phone.. Anyway.. I can set multiple alarms.. Question is.. At what intervals do I set them at to get myself just between waking and sleeping in order to LD? Can someone help? Please and thank you all..

I had a lucid dream the first time I used the timer with a 4 minute base. I had my lucid in the second twenty minute interval as expected. It seems you have misunderstood the principle of the timer. Here is the tutorial from the saltcube forum by the timer's inventor Nick Newport. I believe the timer base for four minutes is 4, 8, 4, 12, 16, 20, 20 minutes

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Rhythm napping is fundamentally simple to do but it does take a few hours so it's better if you have a little preparation before you actually launch into in OBE attempt in order to elevate your success rate and give you the best rate of return on your time. In order for rhythm napping to work, you have to have enough sleep pressure to be able to fall asleep once you've woken up.

Then you must have enough waking pressure to have the awareness to respond to the timer's beeps and enter a lucid dream.

All you have to do is find out what type of sleeping pattern your body likes so that when you go to do rhythm napping you can have a routine tailored for your physiology.

Your sleeping pattern is defined by where you fit on the graph on the right, it's a recording of:

1. Your waking resistance: How hard it is to go from asleep to awake.

2. Your sleep resistance: How hard it is to go from awake to asleep.

At first it may appear that waking resistance and sleep resistance are the same things and that someone with insomnia will also be a light sleeper. That's not really the case, in particular I am somewhat of an insomniac but once I'm asleep I pretty much stay asleep. Once you go through the sleep training routines you'll know your sleeping pattern and which of the following items work for you and which don't:

Too Much Sleep Resistance - You Can't Fall Asleep
In this case you can't fall asleep either at night or once you wake up in the morning. For me the key to fighting insomnia is preparation the day before, especially getting enough sun and physical activity. To adjust for sleep resistance:

Exercise: Do something especially active the day before so you'll be nice and tired at night.

You should ideally do something that burns calories over a fairly long amount of time rather than all at once in a burst. A few hours of skiing or walking will count a lot more toward a good night's sleep than a 15 minute game of cutthroat ping pong.

Sunlight: Get enough sunlight during the mornings and evenings beforehand so you have a healthy store of melatonin. See the section on the Sun for more info.

Be tired enough: When you wake up early in the morning, stay up about 45 minutes or until you star yawning again.

Use the time you're up doing MILD such as reading about OBEs in order to prepare yourself for an exit attempt. A good rule of thumb is to stay up until you're yawning like crazy or as experience dictates.

No hunger: If you're hungry when you get up, eat something that's caffeine and sugar free and is easy to digest. I find that eating solid food doesn't work very well because I can feel it digesting which can be distracting enough to keep me awake. The best thing I've found for myself is to drink a low sugar protein shake because it's enough to quiet the stomach's hunger signal and I can't feel it moving through my system.

No bright lights: Avoid bright lights before going to sleep. Avoid the TV like the plague, falling asleep right after or while watching the tube is the worst thing you can do for your brain and your ability to sleep soundly. Turn down the lights an hour before bed at night and when you get up early in the morning use a flashlight instead of the normal lights.

Red light is the best for not waking you up too much, you can get a Maglite flashlight and then use a red filter on the end of it. Search the web for "Maglite AA Combo Pack", you can get a flashlight and filter for around $15.

Temperature: The temperature is usually different in the morning than it is at night when you're used to falling asleep so you may need to make adjustments in order to fall asleep during the morning. I find I need to have the temperature just right, I don't need the covers up over my shoulders at night but I do in the morning.

Body position: If you have a hard time falling asleep you'll certainly need to be in your usual bed sleeping in your normal position.

Not Enough Sleep Resistance - You Fall Asleep Instead Of Exit
In this case you fall asleep very quickly. This is not a problem if you're using rhythm napping as long as you aren't also an overly deep sleeper. However it can be a problem when you move on to more advanced methods and you are trying to watch yourself as you fall asleep.

Many people report that when they try to use a meditation to exit they wind up falling asleep instead. If you go to sleep too fast and you're out before you know what's happened it can be frustrating. To adjust:

Body position: Try sleeping on your back or even in a sitting position, you want to be just a little less comfortable than you are in bed.

Sleeping location: Try sleeping in a different location such as on the sofa to drop your comfort level just a shade. This also is a form of body-MILD, when you sleep in your bed your body learns that 'bed=sleep'. However if you always do your exit attempts on your sofa, your body will eventually learn that 'sofa=lucid dream'.

Bright lights: Use bright lights to wake you up a bit more. Turn on all the lights in the room and look at the brighter portions of the walls for a few minutes. Another good way to wake up more is to walk around the house outside a bit, breath the morning dew and watch the sun come up, then go back inside and start the naps.

Eat sweet fruits: Peaches, pineapples and oranges are an excellent way to boost your blood sugar to stay awake. Some people recommend caffeine pills, soda pop, or coffee before doing WILDs but it's counterproductive because there's a risk of becoming dependent on caffeine. Crutches are good as long as they're not physiologically addictive and using caffeine in the morning will eventually cause you to need caffeine in order to wake up.

It's also easy to get too much caffeine and have sleepy jitters all day, whereas with fruit you really can't OD on things like oranges.

Background distractions: Leaving the lights on in the room or leaving something like a fan on as background noise can help you hover at the right level of trance.

Too Much Waking Resistance - Deep Sleeper
In this case you may sleep so deeply that the timer isn't enough to wake you up or once you fall asleep you sleep too deeply to be aware enough to exit.

Get enough sleep: It may be that the cause of your especially deep sleep is that you really do need the rest.

Stronger alarm clock: You can also try using an alarm clock that uses flashing lights or vibrates in order to wake you up.

Not Enough Waking Resistance - Light Sleeper
In this case you can't stay asleep long enough to get into a worthwhile trance because you are easily woken by distractions. You don't fall into subconscious sleep but instead drift into a hazy daydream. Solutions include:

Eliminate distraionsct: Use earplugs and an eye mask.

Don't jerk awake: Rhythm napping works best when you don't move at all so make sure your alarm isn't so loud it causes you to jerk and move your body.

Try the items listed under Too Much Sleep Resistance

Recalling The Last Dream You Had
If it turns out you have low sleeping resistance and don't need to stay up a few hours before going back to sleep, you have the advantage of being able to enter your most recent dream from a conscious state more easily. Lay down in the same position you were when you woke up, this helps your body remember the dream in more detail.

Begin the dream in your mind like it's a video, you may wind up phasing right into it and have a lucid dream without even needing to use the timers to keep your awareness up.

Relaxation
Practice relaxing quickly whenever you have a chance, the sleep training routine we'll get to next will give you plenty of opportunities to do so.

Whenever you wake up stop for a moment before you move to observe how relaxed each muscle group in your body is. Start by observing the feeling of relaxation in your feet and move up to your neck and head. Tell yourself "This is what it feels like to be relaxed, this is state R." Recall that feeling of relaxation later by telling yourself "I'm entering state R now." and then bring back that same feeling of relaxation.

This is a good way to use subconscious programming to quickly recall whatever body state you want and in this case relax almost immediately.

An Example
I have high sleep resistance and somewhat high waking resistance. As a pasty faced office jockey I have to make a point to get out and be sure I spend at least a half hour in the sun each day. After that I spend 30 minutes to an hour at the gym with the weights and gerbil machines then take a shower and do a half hour recovery meditation and practice relaxing.

I try to get to sleep by 11:00 and get up at 5:00. I have a protein drink and stay up for two hours reading, do a relaxation routine, then go to sleep in bed in my usual sleeping position. I use a laptop on the bed with the timer web page on it and an ear bud in one ear.

If I am able to get to sleep and I have the volume set loud enough to wake me up, I will OBE several times depending on the timer intervals. If I get up to write each one down I might only do two OBEs, if I just go into them one after another I might have a nearly dozen OBEs and lucid dreams but only remember a few.

Sometimes I stop around 8:30 or I may go as long as until 10:00. If things go horribly wrong I may oversleep until noon and then the rest of the day sucks. Always be sure to use a backup alarm clock to prevent runaway sleeping.

Some days I can't get it to work at all, but I record what happened and compare notes from previous days to see what was the cause. 'Failure days' like that are actually very valuable for finding ways to improve the methods so that when it does work I don't have just one OBE but a whole string of them.

One Week Sleep Training Routine
Here's the actual sleep training you can use during the week days leading up to your first and possibly second rhythm nap sessions during the weekend. There are only four weekdays given here so that if you miss a day you can still do it in one week. After each day make notes on how things turned out and what you'll do differently the next time for better results.

Sleep Training Weekday 1: Wake up a half hour early, note the items listed below, then use a relaxation routine and see if you can fall asleep again before your normal waking time.

Sleep Training Weekday 2: Same as Day 1 but wake up 45 minutes early.

Sleep Training Weekday 3: Wake up 60 minutes early, set the timer to wake you up in 30 minutes. See if the timer wakes you up or if you're not able to fall asleep again before the timer goes off. Don't move when you start your second 30 minute nap.

Sleep Training Weekday 4: Wake up 90 minutes early, use the timer to have three 30 minute naps. Don't move between naps.

What To Record

Each morning after doing your routine record the following information in your log:

* Previous Night:

1. What time you went to bed
2. How tired you were
3. What position you fell asleep in

* Morning:

1. About what time you actually fell asleep
2. What time you woke up in the morning
3. What body position you were in when you woke up
4. How you rested you felt
5. Your body position when you woke, did you wake up in the same position as you fell asleep?

Each morning observe your body relaxation level, stay still and watch yourself fall asleep again. After you've watched how you respond to waking at different times you should have a pretty good idea of where you fall on the graph above.

Using The Data To Decide How To Tweak Your Rhythm Napping Session

The default rhythm sleep description uses a 4 minute base interval (the times are multiples of 4 minutes: 4, 8, 12, etc...), you may have better success using anywhere from a 2 minute to a 6 minute base interval. You may also not need to do the initial 20 minute nap and you may not need to stay up at all between the time you get up and the time you begin the naps.

To find out your personal base interval, consider how deep a sleeper you are and how easily you fall asleep.

Deep sleeper: subtract a minute
Normal sleeper: leave alone
Light sleeper: add a minute

High sleep resistance: add a minute
Normal sleep resistance: leave alone
Low sleep resistance: subtract a minute