Thread: Targeting REM Cycles

Disclaimer: we still don't know what happens during a WILD; there are so far (that I know of) no studies regarding wake induction.

Okay, now that we got that out of the way:

First, it's important to use the correct terms:

- A sleep cycle is a period that encompasses several sleep stages: the duration of this cycle can last anywhere from 70 to 120 minutes, depending on a wide range of factors. The composition of this cycle is determined by neurochemistry, which is influenced by physiological factors occurring prior or during sleep, among other aspects.
- A sleep stage is a specific period with particular neurological and physiological features that occurs within each sleep cycle.

Now, I'll skip the technical details, but picture a scale: in one side, the two mechanisms that regulate sleep (homeostasis and circadian clock) create a sort of sleep debt which can be fulfilled by (drums) sleeping xD but not just any sleep, you'll need sleep from both N-REM and REM stages (because they have different functions to your body). As you go through your sleep, these stages vary in duration, and some of them tend to be prioritized (which also happens when you're sleep deprived). This is the key for understanding wake inductions, because REM stages tend to show up earlier and last longer in the latest sleep cycles of our resting period.

What actually happens? If the idea is to trick your body to fall asleep... wouldn't it just fall asleep and you mind stay awake but no dream forms?

This is actually a misconception: in WILD there's no tricking your body, you DO fall asleep. The only difference is that you retain consciousness during the whole process, a sort of "sleep while awake". It does sound crazy (we don't know how it is possible, but in some sense it seems kind of like meditation), but the person's neural activity is actually changing. Since you're still progressing (maybe in a slightly different way) through stages of sleep, people still experience typical events like hypnagogic hallucinations, muscle atonia (just to mention a few). Then at some point, you enter REM, and the dream forms. Why don't we experience N-REM dreams in the overwhelming majority of times (had to say overwhelming because some people report NREM WILD) and experience REM dreams? No one knows, just like we can't explain why some wake inductions of lucid dreams also result in Out of Body Experiences.
So when people WILD they're not exactly sleeping, but they're not awake either: they're probably in a middle ground which explains how they still experience the physiological features of the sleep stages, but still retain consciousness. At least that's how I view it, I'm sure some people might disagree, or maybe future research will show us how WILDs are actually DILDs with disruption of wakefulness periods (yes, we do wake up several times per night for just a few seconds). Who knows ^^

What determines when the REM period begins. If you are going to say it's based solely on how long you have been asleep this doesn't make sense for the following reason. People say to wake up "before" a REM cycle begins and then wait for it to start. Well while you are waiting you haven't slept any longer so how are you "waiting" for the REM period to begin if it's based on how long you have been sleeping.

That smart observation made me giggle: that's indeed a pretty valid question! But although we don't know exactly what's happening during WILD, it's easier to "guess".
But before that, let me correct you on something: REM stage doesn't begin based on how long you are asleep, it begins based on several factors, including how much sleep you had so far, how much rem sleep you had so far (when I say so far, is recently, remember the scale analogy). Being sleep deprived for example makes you attain REM earlier in the sleep cycles, and lasting for longer durations, because REM is prioritized over other sleep stages in cases of sleep deprivation. But when that "REM debt" is payed off, you'll compensate by experiencing less REM and more N-REM sleep.
So, like you said, regardless of whether we're exactly sleeping or in a hybrid state with specific brain activity, we're still attaining REM after some time. We just do this after a few hours of sleep because that's when (assuming no sleep-debt/issues/etc) the REM stage starts occurring earlier and lasting longer, making it easier to achieve a WILD (because we don't have to wait so long as we would if we tried it when we went to bed) and we get more REM dreaming (aka, longer lucid dreams).

Hopefully this made sense and I didn't forget anything major, but as you can see, we're still pretty much ignorant of what happens during WILD.

PS: the interesting thing is when you perceive WILD as a disruption of the normal sleep cycle: so even if we go by the books, this still wouldn't qualify exactly as how a WILD attempt would go, the presence of consciousness is enough to alter the process by itself. In that sense, the most famous variation of WILD, DEILD, is much easier to explain.