Sleep Schedule questions

Okay so I have an issue with going to bed really late (3 or 4am). And wake up usually around 11am to 1pm. Will this make it harder for me to lucid dream? Back in the day when I would lucid dream (but I went to bed much earlier) I heard things about optimal times to lucid dream, and I'm worried that my horrendous sleep schedule will hinder my ability to LD.

Also, I want to know if I were to start dream recall, or even get to the point that I was lucid dreaming, would suddenly changing my sleep schedule (such as going to bed earlier) completely throw me off? i.e. mess up my dream recall/ability to lucid dream?

good and consistent sleeping hygiene is a very good way to raise the chances for recall and lucidity but its not like you cant lucid dream if you dont.
and i think that as long as you get to bed +-same time and wake up same time and its dark while you sleep (sleeping mask in the morning maybe?) you should be fine because then you still have a sleeping rythm but just not a "normal/typical" one.

when you change your sleeping schedule there will be some days of reajustment and therefore a temporary fall of recall and awareness is possible but not necessarily.
so if you are really into it and dont see it as a big problem you can try to go to bed before midnight and get up a little more early but if you feel comfortable like it is or you depend on this sleeping schedule i wouldnt worry to much as there are different things that are important to get lucid you can focus on ;)

thank you both

It really depends on your body clock. Speaking as a lifelong night owl myself, people are simply wired to sleep at different times. But in my experience, whatever time you are accustomed to going to bed, you can slightly raise your chances of getting lucid by occasionally going to bed (on nights when you want to make a serious attempt) a few hours earlier than usual. However, if that consistently becomes your new bedtime, I don't think it would permanently raise your chances -- unless it better suits your natural sleep schedule.

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.