Thread: WBTB

Congrats! Sounds like an exciting experience

One thing you can try is set your alarm for around 3am? Just a tip incase you can't hear your alarm and might be mote awake by then, and your REM might be active more
But congrats on your first WBTB, those are always nice to have!

Thanks, and I will try that!

when do you go to bed?

normally one can say: the later you do your wbtb the nearer you are in rem cycle and the faster you enter a dream when you fall asleep and the longer is the remphase means you can have a longer lucid. on the other hand the later you get up the lighter is your sleep or you cant fall asleep anymore. with lighter sleep you wake up faster too^^

so normally it is said to to a wbtb after 4-6h. i would prefer 6h but i also sleep for 8-9h when attempting stuff like this so i have enough sleep over.

but like sparkley already said. test around with after how much sleep and how long to stay up. you need to know yourself. it is try and error in the end. some need to be up for 2h some just stay up for 5min and so on.

btw i would warmly recommend to start to work on the recognition of your micro awakenings. after every sleepcyle (90-110min) one wake up for a brief period of time turn around and fall asleep again. you can train yourself to notice this wakenings. its perfect for recall because you normaly wake up after a rem cycle and can reach for the last dream, and your night gets more awareness because you dont zone out for hours. you can do micro wbtbs with fresh intention and therefore have way more chances for lucids and you wont need an alarm. when you want to hear more about it tell me and i link a thread.

I go to bed at around 9-10 o'clock. I probably stayed up for about 5 mins.
When I first started lucid dreaming, I started noticing the short awakenings that you mentioned. Now, for some reason, I don't. I would love for you to send a link about it.

so i looked around.. found some threads:
Waking yourself up without an alarm
http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...ramblings.html
--> see Waking yourself up without an alarm
TagBook+MicroWBTB´s
http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-sign...ok-method.html
http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-sign...cro-wbtbs.html
--> when you can do it how to tag your dreams

Additional information i just couldnt find so fast:
use Mantras like: "I wake up after each dream and remember it" or something similar. invent your own, that fits. couple it with your breathing: for example Inhale: I wake up after each dream Exhale: and remember it.

in my opinion at the beginning it helps do drink some water to wake up but in the end you just need intention.
and this comes with your mantra. say this before falling asleep and really mean it. your no1 priority for the next week or two will be to notice your awakenings. when you wake up: tag the dreams and again set intention to notice the next awakening and repeat until morning.
you need to find your sweetspot how long you stay awake: because it is about microwbtb i dont stand up at all just tag and think about the last dream and visualize it where i might have got lucid and set my intent and fall asleep. the longer you stay awake the more aware you get but when you stay up too long you will have problems falling asleep. therefore ALWAYS prefere falling asleep maybe too unconcious than get insomania. because then you will stress yourself and when you fall asleep you probably wont wake up for some time because your body just wants to sleep.

after some days you will notice that it gets easier and easier.
me for example when i wake up at night i often notice myself lying on my back thinking about the last dream and then just notice ah you are awake and had a dream. and i dont need intention anymore because it is second nature after some time. then you can focus your intent on recall or lucidity. means again after every waking and tagging you use a mantra like i´m dreaming or i get lucid or whatever. you need to have a connection with your mantra.

when you learn to fall asleep saying a mantra you fall asleep with higher awareness because you are in the present moment and dont drift away that much during falling asleep. so this is also advisable in my opinion. one just needs to find the balance how much to concentrate. i concentrate at the beginning more and then slightly let go until its just en echo in my head without effort from my sight.
here a link to it too:
http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...-topics-q.html
--> look up: A Simple Way I Increase Number of DILDs

i know this was more you asked for and i hope i didnt confused you^^ hope it helps. when you should have more questions feel free to pm me or something

Question about WBTB; do you actually have to get up, or can you stay in bed and purposely make sure you mentally wake yourself up, be it by sitting up and focusing on waking up, or using a phone with blue light reduction app installed or something of a similar nature?

I'm that subjectively lucky type of person that wakes up from a dream 4-5 hours after I fall asleep. But I don't want to get up out of bed in the middle of the night.

You might be able to stay in bed and mentally wake yourself up but in my expierences and knowledge, it's better to get up and it's highly recommended.

You can get up to go to the bathroom or read or write about dreams or repeat mantras, you can go on your phone but what I usually do is go on dream views and then I end up dreaming about it.

It's best to actually get up though because it happens so sudden and your not supposed to get up yet and your REM will be high. It's all different for everybody though so I can't say, just expieriment with it and see what's best for you.

Thank you so much for your help, everyone! RelaxAndDream, the links are super helpful!

Last night I actually heard my alarm go off at 3:00, stayed up for five minutes (just like before) and went back to sleep. It didn't work.
I went to bed pretty late last night since I wasn't tired from napping during the day. I'm thinking about maybe trying 4:00 or 1:00 again tonight.
I did, however remember a LOT of dreams last night, which was good, I guess.

Originally Posted by annabeau

Last night I actually heard my alarm go off at 3:00, stayed up for five minutes (just like before) and went back to sleep. It didn't work.
I went to bed pretty late last night since I wasn't tired from napping during the day. I'm thinking about maybe trying 4:00 or 1:00 again tonight.
I did, however remember a LOT of dreams last night, which was good, I guess.

Everything I've read about WBTB suggests a minimum stay up time of 30 mins. You may have gotten lucky the first time.

I've heard that too, but I've also heard that it depends on the dreamer.

Remember, just experiment with it and just wondering but does my text look small?

No, it doesn't.

Okay thanks

Just a question, but do you think I should try for 1:00 (I will have a louder alarm) or 4:00?

Personally I would go for 4, but you can try 1

Ok, thanks! If 4 doesn't work, I'll try 1:00

Originally Posted by Ripull

Everything I've read about WBTB suggests a minimum stay up time of 30 mins. You may have gotten lucky the first time.

At least 30 minutes of stay-up time isn't a requirement for a successful WBTB. Many successful users of WBTB (including me) usually only stay up for a few minutes at a time; this is known as a microWBTB. If you make your WBTB too long, you will be losing too much sleep and might not be able to fall back asleep again that night.

Ok, thanks!

so some questions came up:
the minimum time of 30min is rubbish. when i did proper wbtb´s this might happen but i wrote down some dreams and go to the toilet and drink a sip of water. this needed around 20-30min but it wasnt planed... writing down your dreams in detail needs time.
but during the night i dont write dreams down in detail anymore. it just needs way to much time of your sleep and in the end you might not fall back asleep again because the dream was so exciting. just tag them and write them in the morning in detail. (and again the less time you are awake the more often you wake up= the more chances you have for lucids)

i wake up about 4-5 times a night. every time i just tag them down set my intention that i really want to lucid dream and imagine what i want to do. i lay down like i normally do to sleep and say up my mantra. until i fall asleep.
so of this 4-5 times a night i might stand up once for toilet the rest of the time i dont move out of my bed. maybe i drink some water.
i get between 1-4 lucids "each" night when the other parameters are right.

but i can imagine that for a beginnger it is better to do a longer wbtb per night (plus the short once). because you just dont have "the feeling" yet. you need to wake up enough that you dont get unconscious immediately with the touch of your pillow but not need 20min to fall asleep. you should go mainly for a feeling you have and not for a time on a clock. take notes about it how you feel, how tired you was what was on your mind falling asleep how fast it go etc. so you can learn from night to night. and try the timings more then once. maybe it is "perfect" but you just had a bad night.

alarm clocks erase dreamrecall btw so a reason more to practice to notice your awakenings.

I did, however remember a LOT of dreams last night, which was good, I guess.

that is a good thing. this means you had higher awareness but just not enough to get lucid. this is an success! you really should be thankful for a good recall and your nld in general. dont start to think lucids are THE SHIT and NLD are just trash that is not worth it. you learn thru your nld. you need to appreciate them. its all about the mindset. when you dont appreciate them you will have automatically less lucids!

i recommend you to try SSILD: click here after a wbtb (go for the updated link in the thread). it doesnt guaranty lucids but at the beginnings for me it worked wonders. at least you get vivid and detailed NLD from it. i think it works because you engage the important senses and because you do your cycle you dont pass out unconscious while thinking about something but you stay "focused" and fall asleep with a clear head. therefore it has something similar to falling asleep doing mantras. and i think ssild is a good way to get a feeling for the right amount of sleepy or wakeful because when you pass out during the first cycle you know you was too tired but when you can do 20 cycles and just dont fall asleep you know next time less wake up

and the last one: sleepcycle is between 90-110 min so you can set your alarm to 2:30 too and in the best case your alarm rings right after a sleepcycle of your ends. so you might even try to set lets say 6h after falling asleep but then try 5h45 and 6h15 etc.

edit: i dont recommend using your phone, computer or whatever electronic device during a wbtb... the light desturbes your intern nightclock... just focus on your dreams and think about them you dont need to go for dreamviews... and even if you dont remember fresh dreams think about some memorable old once your lucids or nonlucids for example or incubate new dreams you would like to have.

Yeah....I completly agree about everything you said. I stayed up for ten minutes, watching a video about lucid dreaming, and it took me an HOUR to fall asleep after that. (My WBTB was for 3:30.) My dreams after the wbtb, however, were very vivid, and I noticed a lot of details in them.