Thread: How to wake up in time for a REM period?

Originally Posted by Origami

What I heard was-
You fall asleep and after 90 mins, you start the REM cycle.
This is basically an hour of nothing

Do you mean an hour and a half?

Originally Posted by Origami

The thing is, if you wake up after a REM cycle finished, then you just woke up after a dreaming phase ended. Then the WBTB postpones the next REM cycle until you fall asleep, and so the effects of the WBTB are lost while waiting the hour until the next REM begins.

As I understand it, the REM cycle continues even when you're awake (for a few hours.. of course it re-sets when you've been awake for several hours). This is why naps can work so well. So, if you wake at the end of a REM period after about 4.5 hours, it's only going to be a little while to the next one starts, and staying awake thinking about lucid dreaming and working on some technique fills that time so you can then slip right into the next REM period. At least that's my understanding.

I think a WBTB should probably be longer than 10 - 15 minutes. Though in my case, if I start trying to get back to sleep in about 10 - 15 minutes, it will probably take me another half hour or so to fall back asleep anyway...