Sleep cycles during afternoon naps

[Replicon]

As we all know, when you sleep at night, the longer you've been sleeping, the longer the REM periods will be within the 90 minute cycles. But how do sleep cycles look during an afternoon nap? Is it REM-intensive, or is it more like the first few hours of regular, nighttime sleep? Are there any ways of setting up an afternoon nap to maximize potential for dreaming?

[Kastro187420]

I became Lucid Last night with taking small naps... Except I took them from between 8 PM - 12:30 AM, and then stayed up till 1:00 AM and went to bed, I ended up remembering to do a Reality Check, and became Lucid. That seems the only way for Naps to help me with dreaming.

[kramari]

Afternoon naps are indeed REM-intensive you can immediately move from waking to lucidity (WILD). Yesterday I had a nap and in no time I was lucid. I know that because I went to bed in 2 pm after being awake for 7 hours and just 20 mins after, I woke up from a LD.

[Replicon]

Really? hmmm... so, what DOES determine what our sleep cycle will look like when we go to sleep? For instance, if you're up late working on something, and you take a power nap... you're going to bed, and it's about bedtime, so I guess it would be like... the boring sleep cycle hehe. Is it determined by how tired you are (how badly you need sleep), or more based on your "inner night/day biological clock"? (if I had to guess, it would be the latter)

[TheUnknown]

I also have the belief that with enough mental training, LD's are possible at the onset of sleep at night. I've also found for naps it doesn't matter.. sometimes you have a light REM-intensive nap.. and other times you drop into a nice delta non-REM sleep. It varies on the day.. you'll be more likely to get REM-intensive closer to morning (like 1PM, but if you try for 5-6PM you'll most likely just hit deep sleep).

[Pdoubledreaming]

during most afternoon naps,and morning naps(where i wake up but doze back off) is when i suffer from some badddd sleep paralysis....in the mornings if i wake up and drift back off to attempt a wild or just to get more sleep,4 out of 5 times ill have SP when i wake up...i hate SP...but yea i need to try more WILDs since i do nap a lot..

[existenceisadream]

Originally posted by Pdoubledreaming during most afternoon naps,and morning naps(where i wake up but doze back off) is when i suffer from some badddd sleep paralysis....in the mornings if i wake up and drift back off to attempt a wild or just to get more sleep,4 out of 5 times ill have SP when i wake up...i hate SP...but yea i need to try more WILDs since i do nap a lot.. I know SP paralysis can hit you off gaurd but SP is the key for OBE. If I was you I would try to view SP as a good thing and use it to move directly into a LD. There's been times when I would come into SP and freak out and try to wake up but now as soon as I'm in SP I exit right back into an OBE/LD. When I find myself in SP I relax and then just will my energy body out. I used to drink a lot and not get enough sleep the night before going to work and and then get off work and cracsh for 2-3 hours. I did this all the time and almost always have LD's. It's weird because I would be so tired after work and fall to sleep in seconds but have really long LD's. It seems if the body is that tired that it would go into deeper sleep quicker. I kind of believe it may have something to do with it being light and my mind notices this while sleeping or your mind knows this isn't the normal night time sleep time. I know keep my room so dark that even in the day it's dark but I really don't take naps often anymore. I get my LD'ing in by sleeping long hours.

[YULAW]

Yep Kramari is right the transistion from Waking into WILD is always more effective during the mid afternoon hours during nap sessions.. I've acheived most of my WILDs during afternoon hours. Lucidity seems to be hightened at this time of day also.

[Replicon]

How do you guys manage to get to sleep though? I'm never tired during the afternoon... At least, not "I'm sleepy, I think I'll try a WILD" tired. Do you actually re-arrange your night sleep schedule to have less sleep and be more likely to take an afternoon nap or something? I find that even if I feel really tired, once I get to a certain level of relaxation, I just lie there. I'm sure it's an optimal state to be in for meditation, since you can focus and not doze off, but doesn't seem ripe for WILDage.