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.
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