Trouble getting back to sleep after only 4.5h of sleep

So, the intention for the night was to sleep for at least 6h, then attempt a WILD. I went to bed at midnight, and I woke up at 4.40 am more or less. I didn't even get out of the bed, I wanted to fall back asleep quickly, sleep for another whole REM cycle and then attempt the WILD. Turns out it's been almost two hours and I'm still awake, feeling fully alert and unable to sleep. I've basically tried it all, went to the bathroom a couple of times, have a little snack, even try the WILD, but nothing could make me feel even slightly drowsy.

I don't get why I feel so awake after having slept only half of the night. I've been exercising lately so I went to bed tired. I am a morning person and soon the sun will rise, and then it'll be almost impossible to get any more sleep, specially after having been awake for so long.

Anyone who's had the same problem?

I know how you feel, I have the exact same problem everynight(even had it today just now). I'll try napping see if it helps me get a LD.

I've encounter this problem as well and have found my own solution to it. I find it very helpful that after you wake up from 4 hours of sleep that you don't feel the slightest bit of being tired because if you do manage to fall asleep after feeling that way chances of lucidity are higher. For me what works is changing my sleeping position to something my body is not familair with. Instead of lying on my side in a vertical position, I decide to sleep with no pillow in a horizontal position and after that I find it completely easy to fall asleep again despite feeling completely awake 8 mins ago. This hasn't failed me yet, also feel free to change what position feels best in being unfamiliar to you.

The pillow thing is actually a very good idea, I'll try it next time definitely.

Funny thing is, I fell asleep soon after posting the thread, maybe getting it off my shoulders helped me relax. But I didn't get any lucid and barely have any recall at all.

I find this happens to me when I start thinking of something that involves emotions I may feel happy, excited, or annoyed and can't seem to get it off my mind, as if there is a need to come to some conclusion. The hole process just activates my brain and even my body so much I can't sleep. So i like to stay more neutral in mood when i wake up.
I love the pillow thing too and have noticed this has worked when I've done that unintentionally.
A well known one is make a worry list and essentially that's what you did on DV's.
There are lots of ideas out there I found like stretching your body, roll your eyes, breath slowly but naturally, don't use electronic devices before bed especially with a screen, no coffee or chocolate near bed time, have a cooler room and find in a comfortable position, visualise a calm place like a tropical paradise engage three or more senses, start slow and breath through left nostril (a yoga thing), make worry list or to do list for the next day, squint eyes slightly try looking at bridge of your nose.. look for patterns and random noises and follow them but don't think much about it.
Try doing them all at once and you will drift off to sleep in no time.. joking they are just multiple ideas I found that may help someone.

I have the same problem! Since I started trying to get lucid dreams (with the MILD method) two weeks ago, in about half of my nights I find myself unable to sleep again after having woken up. I sleep like four or five hours these nights. Yet, I don’t even do the MILD visualisation and auto-suggestion when I am laying in bed, I do it before going to bed, as I know I have a hard time sleeping and that going to bed with an intent will make me unable to sleep.

Thank you Vile, I will try that.

EDIT : Tried it this night, didn’t work. After having woken up, I spent a while trying to sleep normally, then I got up, went to toilet and spent 10 minutes reading, and went back to bed without pillow. I eventually put back the pillow under my head. I spent one hour and a half without managing to sleep.

I've had 2 lucids in the past week(one last night) just from waking up naturally in the middle of the night, going to the bathroom and then getting back in bed. I used to have difficulty falling asleep again, but I just changed the way I thought about it. Now I don't think that I MUST fall asleep again, I just lie in bed to rest. A warm bed is very conducive to sleep, especially if you are resting.

If you are paranoid about not falling asleep, that will definitely keep you awake. Just lie still in bed to rest, whether you fall asleep or not doesn't matter. Don't toss or turn. Enjoy the comfort of lying down and resting. And you will find that you will drift to sleep, even if it may take a while. And then BAM!, you are lucid.

All the best. :)

I've had this problem a few times too. The good news is that the longer it takes me to go back to sleep, the more aware I seem to be in my dreams after that. A lot of my good lucids have come after what I thought was a jank WBTB because I couldn't go back to sleep for a few hours afterwards. Lately I've just been waking up to go to the bathroom and going right back to bed. Something as simple as sitting on the edge of my bed for 10 seconds can give me enough wakefulness to get in the right mindset before falling back asleep.

I think Flashdance is right. Tonight I layed in bed trying to sleep for three hours. Just when I gave up, allowed the morning light to entry and decided to rest a bit before getting up from bed, I fell down to sleep.

Thinking about it, when I go to sleep, I always daydream, never think about sleep. I think the key to sleeping is to not think about sleeping.

a little melatonin can help if you're struggling

Oh, the pain. Yes, 4.5-6 hours is the critical time for me as well. If I wake up in that time range and do much of *anything* mental at all, even reach for recall, it can mean insomnia for hours afterwards. Supplements like galantamine and choline practically guarantee it.

Dreaming is hard work for us fast-to-wake-up, slow-to-sleep-again people. On the silver lining side, I think we may have an easier time getting lucid, if only we can get back to sleep, because I think this slow-to-sleep quality means a higher level of mental activity. Just a guess. I know that many times after long struggles to get back to sleep, the result is a DILD, so that is great motivation to not give up and get up for the day.

The best thing to do is grab a lot of determination and willpower, and *force* yourself to relax. Yeah, that sounds funny, doesn't it, but relaxing properly is hard work when your mind wants to jump around: you must keep your mind relaxed, empty, yet not *trying* to sleep, but just to drift in a happy contented fog, not concerned about achieving any particular goals (dreaming, falling back asleep), just enjoying the relaxing feeling of drifting into drowsiness, etc. It is the paradox of intent: when you finally stop *trying* to sleep, you can fall asleep instantly :).

It takes a lot of practice to get good at this (I've been working on this for the better part of a year, it doesn't always work, but it works MUCH more often than tossing and turning and stressing [which never, ever works]). I'd say I can get back to sleep about 75% of the time, given quiet conditions and no particular important early appointments that keeps my mental alarm clock active.

Also I find getting out of bed and sitting in not very comfortable chairs, not making myself really warm, basically getting a bit uncomfortable, can help me get drowsy quite quickly. Many "how to sleep" advice sites include not allowing yourself to remain in bed awake for more than about 10-15 minutes, on the theory that you want to avoid your brain thinking that "it's OK to be in bed and not be sleeping." That also includes avoiding ALL activity (except the horizontal dancing one) in bed other than sleeping: no reading, no watching movies/TV, etc. Make the bed EXCLUSIVELY a sleeping location.