I keep waking up without any reason

[111]

Hello everyone, it's around 5 days that I've come to know about lucid dreaming. I've started my dream journal, I often do reality checks and go to sleep with the intention of becoming lucid. The problem is that since I've started to practice I wake up in the night almost 2 or 3 times! And I also feel like my dreams are more fragmented. When I wake up I remember the dream I was doing (I never became lucid), but I don't remember how I got out of it.. nor how it really ended.. I have light sleep and I'm afraid that just when I'm about to do a reality check or my awareness increases, I wake up. Or maybe I do the reality check and wake up, without even remembering it (is that possible?). This morning I had a slight feeling that I had tried to breathe while pinching my nose when I was asleep.. But I'm not sure since I'm doing that practically all day. I'm so annoyed.. I've noticed that a frequent time at which I wake up is around 5:10-5:15. Hope you can help me and give me some advice. Thanks for your time, Dawn

[Laurelindo]

Hello, 111. Actually, we all wake up multiple times throughout the night, but we usually forget that we do. I believe the reason why we wake up like this is a kind of survival mechanism, so that we can check our surroundings for dangers even when we sleep. You probably feel like you wake up more often than usual because your lucid dreaming practice has made you more aware in general, so you more easily notice and remember your natural brief awakenings. It is definitely possible to perform Reality Checks and even to be lucid and then forget about it, just like you can have a fantastic experience in waking life and then forget about it several years later. This is one of the reasons why keeping a Dream Journal is so important - it trains your dream recall, and makes it easier to remember any lucid dreams you had that night.

[Maxis]

You wake up naturally at the end of every REM cycle; like Laurelindo said, you usually drift off to sleep and forgetting about it. Becoming aware that you're awake when you wake up is a good thing (since like I said, most people just drift off to sleep without further thought)--this is actually a good time to attempt a WILD, DEILD, or WBTB.

[sparkley]

It is good to try WBTB! It could help your mantras or if you are doing FILD or WILD it will help a bit more.

[FryingMan]

Hi 111, As others have noted, waking up at night is natural and happens every night at the end of REM cycles. Starting to notice this is an important first step in lucid dreaming practice! You have several options when you wake: remain physically still and mentally quiet ask yourself "what was I just dreaming about?" if no dream memory is already in your mind either record your dreams (at least make highlight/key ideas), as this is the absolute best time to note dream content is right after you wake up from them, or stay still and quiet, lightly thinking about your dream, and drift off back to sleep, in order to have a DEILD. or do MILD and visualize a scene from the dream you just awoke from, imagine yourself becoming lucid in that dream, and say to yourself "the next time I'm dreaming I remember to recognize that I'm dreaming" (or some other meaningful mantra, just "I'm dreaming" is also good). Do this over and over until you either fall asleep, or if you can't fall asleep while doing this, then stop and just let your mind empty and fall asleep. If you just had an exciting or lucid dream, it's sometimes hard to stay mentally quiet, especially in the beginning. I would always voice record my dream details right away after waking, and I could talk for minutes nonstop about the things I remembered from the dreams. Now however I'm moving my focus more towards getting back into the dreams lucidly, so I'm trying to just mentally note the key memories of the dreams and get right back into the dream (lucidly hopefully!). In the beginning though it is very good to focus exclusively on dream recall in order to get good at it before also attempting the lucidity techniques/approaches.

[111]

Thank you so much for your responses, they have been very very helpful! :-) Now I can actually take advantage of this situation, I thought it was a negative one. This morning I woke up at 4:47 and I remembered my mission. So I went to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror, I looked like a zombie.. and not because I was dreaming (I did several RCs).. I still have a long way, but I can't wait to experience a lucid dream!

[FryingMan]

Part of LD practice is learning all about how you sleep and dream, how long it takes to wake up, how long it takes you to go to sleep, and so on. It's a long journey but the rewards are tremendous, stick with it !

[Laurelindo]

This chart will give you an idea of when it is most ideal to practice MILD and similar techniques. As you can see, the best times tend to be after about 5-7 hours after you go to sleep. The first REM period is usually around 5-10 minutes, and then they gradually become longer and longer after that. It can be very effective to sleep a little longer than you usually do as well; for example, practice MILD after 8 hours and sleep for another hour or so.