Need help on WBTB

Hey guys- so I have been trying to LD for a few weeks, with varied success. I had one small LD at the start of the week, and then on Saturda I had an epic string of lucids that happened because I stayed up till about 12, woke up at 8 for my lesson and then went back to sleep an our and a half later. This was kind of like a WBTB, but a strange one. So this is my question: what is the best way to do a successful WBTB, I.e the best times? I tried the saturday thing again and it didn't work at all....
How do I find my REM cycle times and what are yours? Thanks a lot (;

I will now explain why WBTB, REM and Lucidity is like a hammer and a nail. ^-^

The WBTB is not something you succeed it's something you use, in other words it's something you do not something you try.

The real goal is to induce higher awareness and to wake up as close to REM as possible.

So see the WBTB as a hammer and hitting the REM as hitting the nail.

You can't succeed a hammer :wtf2: But you can succeed hitting the nail, although the nail is a really good tool to successfully hit the nail.

The most effective way to hit REM though is to sleep for a long period of time, usually 6 hour is a very reliable time.

However if you fall asleep and then wake without having a lucid dream, this is just as a small problem as missing the nail or making the nail not going all the way down, but all you have to do is to use the hammer again.

Which in this analogy means that you use the WBTB again.

There is one problem though. Even if you do time your WBTB with the REM and fall asleep, there is a risk of not noticing the dream anyway because the aminergic system or for simplicity's sake, the chemical system in the brain responsible for critical thinking, is kind of low in activity. So it can be hard to attain lucidity and even if you do, you will not think very rationally. I will try to explain a solution for that now:

After each awakening something amazing happens, in this example with the hammer and the nail let's say that lucidity is when the nail is completely down.

Each time you hammer the nail (WBTB) you make it go down bit by bit, unless you make a perfect strike and succeed instantly. So on each awakening or let's say each short WBTB it gets easier and easier to hit the nail and make it go fully down.

It's like this for awakenings as well. After each awakening the system in your brain responsible for critical thinking get slightly more active, because the brain is actually preparing you to wake up although since you fall asleep the system helps you think critically in the dream instead, which atleast if it is a strange environment is almost a guaranteed lucidity.

So sleep for a long time (6 H) to make sure that you REM peiods are long and easier to target, then keep the theory of awakenings in mind, so even if you do wake up after not having a lucid dream, just falling back to sleep again with or without applying a method is actually providing you an even bigger chance of critical thinking than before.

Here is a video about the Brain Chemistry: Lucid Dream Technique - Brain Chemistry - YouTube

And here is a description of what I just described in more depth: http://www.dreamviews.com/f79/cant-a...4/#post1977819

Nailed it! :wink:

Good luck ;)

The fact that you took the time to write that gives you my respect. Very helpful tips here. Could you telle me how long you stay up for while using WBTB? Thanks

The answer might surprise you, but even though I might be the opposite of lazy when it comes to write answers to people's questions here on Dreamviews, I am the definition of lazy when it comes to WBTBs. :rolleyes: I actually set my alarm before hand, as I go to sleep in the beggining of the night so for now I don't stay up at all, I just wake up and fall asleep over and over again until the crtical thinking is enough to make me aware that something is strange and I realize that it is a dream.

But I am sure that it would be more effective if I have atleast a 5-30 min WBTB before using the alarms, because then the aminergic system has a little time to recharge in a sense. And then as I go back to bed and use the awakenings I would basically just maintain the aminergic system at it's peak.

Thanks for asking, it made me think :smartie: and perhaps the lucid dream is even more vivid and enjoyable if the aminergic system is "fully charged" before using the alarms.

But to answer your question, I can say that for now I have just trusted that the awakenings would provide me with a bigger chance of lucidity and my critical thinking would be high enough, but the time of the WBTB in relation to it's effectiveness depends on what purpose you have with the WBTB.

In this case it's just to raise the aminergic system and that can easily be done by staying up a few minutes, but if you want to use the WBTB for something completely different like depriving yourself of REM and experience something called a REM-Rebound you would have to stay up longer. But in my post the point is that you just have to wake up.

I hope that clears some things up. ;)