Thread: Sleep Schedule questions

If you otherwise get enough sleep despite the “bad” sleep schedule, and your body is comfortable with those sleep/wake times, then you shouldn't have much of a problem with dreams/LDs. For some reason, my body seems to really want 25–26-hour days. I went from being a night owl in my youth to winding up with a non-24-hour sleep disorder for nearly a decade, and only managed to resume and stay on anything resembling a 24-hour rhythm earlier this year after several previous failed attempts. Even then, it's still kind of a night-owl schedule, and it always feels like my body is just barely able to sustain such a short cycle.

However, even when my sleep schedule was really crazy, at the point where it was “stable” (in the sense that my waking and sleep periods were at least relatively consistent lengths each day and I was getting enough sleep), my dream recall and LD activity were just fine. But suddenly trying to shift the schedule, and especially falling behind on adequate sleep, often kill it for a while until I eventually stabilize again.

As Verre says, sleeping a bit longer than usual can make LDs more likely because you increase the time you can spend in light REM, especially toward the end of sleep. On the other hand, constantly switching your sleep schedule (like sleeping in on weekends) can also destabilize your circadian rhythm depending on how sensitive you are, so that may or may not pay off, and it can also cause trouble if you're trying to retrain yourself to a different schedule.

TL;DR: As long as you're getting enough sleep, you should be able to have decent dream recall and LDs regardless of what your actual sleep/wake times are.