Does WBTB help?

Recently in the last two nights I tried WBTB for the first times. It seemed simple enough, set an alarm for 5 hours and when you wake up, hang out for a little all the while thinking of lucid dreaming. Well, I tried this but I didn't really work the way I expected. I expected something that might even help me with my recll and may even make my dreams more vivid. I didn't necessarilly expect it to make me lucid because I just started back up not too long ago. However, I realized that when I woke up on the first morning I only remembered two very small thinks and those were numbers for some reason. This morning when I tried it I couldn't remember anything. Am I doing anything wrong, should I even be doing WBTB this early in my dreaming? IDK. Any response would be greatly appreciated thanks!

Hi blacklex! It's generally considered a superior experience to not use alarms. The danger of alarms are that: 1) the shock of the waking erases prior dream recall; and 2) that an alarm will activate your waking mind so starting your day and you may not get back to sleep. You can set intention to notice the little wakings during the night, and if it's important enough to you and you try enough, you will notice them, giving you an opportunity to do WBTB without the problem of the alarm.

WBTB and sleep and dreaming patterns are highly personal -- lucid dreaming is a journey about discovering the balance between relaxation and awareness, the experiences of falling asleep and dreaming. Try many different time and durations. I personally aim towards micro-WBTBs (not even getting out of bed, just re-setting intention, and doing a meditation while falling back asleep).

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Originally Posted by FryingMan

Hi blacklex! It's generally considered a superior experience to not use alarms. The danger of alarms are that: 1) the shock of the waking erases prior dream recall; and 2) that an alarm will activate your waking mind so starting your day and you may not get back to sleep. You can set intention to notice the little wakings during the night, and if it's important enough to you and you try enough, you will notice them, giving you an opportunity to do WBTB without the problem of the alarm.

WBTB and sleep and dreaming patterns are highly personal -- lucid dreaming is a journey about discovering the balance between relaxation and awareness, the experiences of falling asleep and dreaming. Try many different time and durations. I personally aim towards micro-WBTBs (not even getting out of bed, just re-setting intention, and doing a meditation while falling back asleep).

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Thanks for the quick reply! I was just wondering how exactly do I train myself to wake up in the middle of the night without an alarm? It makes complete sense now on why the alarm doesn't work. Also what do you mean to train my brain to notice little wakenings?

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Originally Posted by blacklex

Also what do you mean to train my brain to notice little wakenings?

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I think what he means is we often awaken after a REM cycle, however when we do our awareness is at a very low level and we probably only adjust our sleeping position and drift right back to sleep, never remembering it in the morning. So setting an intention before dozing off of something like "I will awaken after each dream and remember it" might provide that extra little kick to raise awareness enough to take notice, recalling the dream(s) and then recoding them.

One way to enhance natural awakenings to the point you are aware is drinking water right before bed and then some at each awakening. The discomfort of a fuller bladder might be enough to prevent you from going right back to sleep.

The past few nights I've been experimenting with setting my cell phone alarm for 10 or so minutes after my third REM cycle. I'm finding it a little tricky because I have to make an assumption of how fast I fall to sleep. I do have good timings of my REM cycles and they are roughly 75 minutes. So I factor in 3 times that plus 10 minutes to fall to sleep and then another 10 minutes to give me a chance to wake up naturally. So far results are mixed, but I'll stick with it a couple of weeks.

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Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

I think what he means is we often awaken after a REM cycle, however when we do our awareness is at a very low level and we probably only adjust our sleeping position and drift right back to sleep, never remembering it in the morning. So setting an intention before dozing off of something like "I will awaken after each dream and remember it" might provide that extra little kick to raise awareness enough to take notice, recalling the dream(s) and then recoding them.

One way to enhance natural awakenings to the point you are aware is drinking water right before bed and then some at each awakening. The discomfort of a fuller bladder might be enough to prevent you from going right back to sleep.

The past few nights I've been experimenting with setting my cell phone alarm for 10 or so minutes after my third REM cycle. I'm finding it a little tricky because I have to make an assumption of how fast I fall to sleep. I do have good timings of my REM cycles and they are roughly 75 minutes. So I factor in 3 times that plus 10 minutes to fall to sleep and then another 10 minutes to give me a chance to wake up naturally. So far results are mixed, but I'll stick with it a couple of weeks.

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Alright thanks, I'll have to try that. I was wondering, how is that cell phone alarm working for you? Because what is happening to me is that the cell phone alarm is very sudden for me and it causes me to forget basically everything I was dreaming about I was just wondering how it might have effected you.

It's mixed. Maybe 50/50? Sometimes I've had recall, other times not. Without an alarm I'm now usually aware of 2 or 3 wake ups on most nights. I wanted to use the cell to catch the times I don't wake up or wake up and go right back to bed. But I do agree that the noise and suddenness of the alarm can impact recall. I know a couple of times I did have a dream on the edge of memory, but after hitting 'dismiss' for the alarm I couldn't recall it.

By the way, before I started setting an intention to wake up after each dream and remember, I don't really remember all that much waking and dreaming. Maybe a couple times a week? So for me setting an intention has given me that extra bit of awareness of my awakenings during the night.

Hmm im having trouble, mainly I can only pull off a lucid from wbtb is when I have about 5-10 minutes left before I have to get up for work/school.
Its easier to visualize yourself getting up when you have somewhere to be. (Assuming thats the trick to wbtb)

Yes, by "little wakings" I mean the natural wakings we all experience in between sleep cycles, but that most just forget.

I've had the most luck with strong desire to notice the wakings, and setting intention at bedtime, "I notice wakings during the night, remain still, and recall my dreams" is one such example. I used to use "I wake up after every dream" but Sageous warns that this may in fact cause full waking and insomnia, and since I frequently experience middle of the night insomnia, I stopped using any sort of "wake up" in my intentions. But if you fall asleep easily you may want to use it.

If you're really excited about noticing the wakings, and it's important to you, and you set the intention, you should start noticing them soon. It's just like having an early flight in the morning that it's critical you don't miss, you keep waking up all through the night and checking the time, even though you have an alarm set.

I don't use alarms at all now unless I have a critical morning appointment, certainly not for dream recall wakings. Being able to notice the inter-sleep-cycle wakings is pretty important for LDing so it's a good idea to develop the ability.

Good luck!

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Originally Posted by FryingMan

"I notice wakings during the night, remain still, and recall my dreams" is one such example.

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I like that one! While I don't have a problem getting back to sleep, this mantra is more to the point of the desired outcome. As you said, we have these awakenings naturally, but usually never notice them. So it really is about noticing the awakenings, not initiating them.