My way of becoming lucid (coffee, exercise, reversed WBTB)

Hey everyone! Nice forum!

Okay this is my own way that I had most success with. It's a combination of exercise, coffee and a variation of WBTB. Please tell me what you think and if you have any tips how to refine it. I don't know it this actually fits more into techniques. I wonder alot about this, or if it's even concidered a technique.

This is how i do it:

First, during the day, I make sure I get a little exercise. It doesn't have to be intense or drastic. Just to get a little sweaty and enough get into a relaxed state. Biking or a speed walk for 20-30 minutes seems to be just fine.
During the evening I don't drink any caffeine! For those nights I have used decaffeinated coffee, but that me because I really love coffee.

When I get naturally tired at night I go to sleep but for max one hour. Then I get up, and stay up for about 3-5 hours, I think somewhere after 4 is optimun. This part could be a little hard, since I have exercised during the day and don't have any caffeine in my system, so I could probably wake up from deep sleep and I have to fight the temptation to fall back to sleep. I have a sophisticated alarm which I can't turn off easily and that helps alot.

Next I make a little coffee, and just a little. I have used about one teaspoon of instant coffee and that works fine for me. It might be good to wait an hour after wakening before drinking it, so my body doesn't have too much time to metabiloze it during the hours im gonna be awake.

Rest of the time, before going back to sleep again I kinda do what I want, nothing too intense or I might have trouble falling back to sleep again. I don't really think or read about lucid dreaming during that time, although it'll probably help too, but I do keep lucid dreaming in mind. Then I just go to sleep, and have a simple intent of being lucid.

Let's get on to the lucid quality. It's not bad at all but I don't get to a crisp, clear LD right away. What seems to happen at the begining of my dream is that I don't reailze fully that im dreaming, but it doesn't take long until I get fully aware, usually not by any RC, just automaticly. I feel concious when I look around and it feels real. Im aware that im asleep and can wake up and can carry out my will. I don't come to think of all my ideas of stuff I want to try in LDs, right away. But I think it's most due to that I get a little overwhelmed by being lucid, the scenery and all the possibilities. If i don't have a strong intent of what I want to do before hand, then I mostly end upp "fooling around" like exploring, flying, having sex or whatever spontaneous ideas I get at the time. So if it's it someting specific I want to try it's a good idea to have the intent before getting to sleep. What seem to happen sometimes is false awakeings, but I can't recall if or when I have ever lost lucidity to that, so it doesn't bother me much. I just wake and get lucid right away when I have done this.

I feel like the most crucial to this is relaxation (trust me, exercise it helps alot), caffeine, timing and mindset (interest, always have LD in mind troughout the day). I think dream recall matters too, and I do keep a dream journal, but I don't write every single day and most of the time I don't write much, just a few sentences, so I try to write at least something.

One feeling I get is that it's more successful the longer I stay up before gong back to sleep again, but if I stay upp for too long i might not be able to fall back asleep. What I want is to get that cozy, sometimes kinda "dreamy" feeling when I get to sleep again. Like im pretty awake but relaxed enough to be able to fall asleep. It's just like i have to get the right balance. Sure, I usually take vitamin B complex and turmeric when I try this, sometimes SJW or rhodiola, but I don't think those are too important. But the caffeine really feels like a key ingredient, keeps the mind awake and maybe some REM-rebound going on? Oh! Forgot to mention that i use tobacco, and that affects dreams alot and it's stronger than cigarettes (like chewing tobacco, you'd probably heard of "snus" in sweden) and sometimes i accidently fall alseep with it. I don't know if it have anything to do with it but sometimes i went back to bed just when the sun is about to rise.

It is very similar to WBTB but the difference is it's like in reverse. Instead of sleeping for 4-6 hours, you sleep for 1 hour. And instead of staying up 45min-1h, you stay up 3-5 hours, sometimes even more. I haven't had much success with normal WBTBs. This made me have LDs two day's in a row and other times not may days apart, but those times i didn't get LDs I didn't do everything right either, so it does require some effort and free time.

I just feel that i have finally found my golden cow on how to get lucid, and have confidence that I will succeed, if I do it right.

Im gonna call it something, mostly for puns: :laughtillhurts:
(EC)RWBTB - (Exercise Caffeine) Revesed Wake Back To Bed

I would be really glad if this "technique" could be refined somehow or that you could pin point what factors that matters alot and/or what else I could try? By the way I don't really want to get into any strong supplements like Huperzine or Galantamine, maybe i'll try sometime, who knows.


Thanks in advance!

Hello Terrasoul :) very interesting stuff to read! I like your wbtb timing - i will try your method. Now about caffeine - caffeine is NREM sleep supressor. That means when you take it, it will promote REM sleep and wont let you go in deep sleep (if you had enough deep sleep before and your body is not exhausted). Basicaly it will reduce or kill the NREM gab between wakefullnes and REM phase. I did experiments with caffeine and it worked very well, if you know its function and how to use it. The hard part is dosage and timing. Dosage relies on your desensitization. One cup of caffeine stays in you body long time that people usually dont realise -

one cup off coffe 40mg (approx)

5 hours - 20 mg / 50%
10 hours - 10 mg / 25%
15 hours - 5 mg / 13%
20 hours - 3 mg / 6%
25 hours - 1 mg / 3%
30 hours - 1 mg / 1%
35 hours - 0 mg / 0%

and to work again it is recommended to stay away from used substance at least the same time you were on it. Many people drink caffine every day (tea, coffee, fizzy drinks some food and so on) and did realise that. That's why it is so hard to calculate how much to take to fall asleep again. Your method should be better because your body will strive to sleep again, because of just on hour prior sleep. For me the dosage is usualy few sips of coke or green tea works awesome.

Nicotine is another story... It works miraculously when properly used for induction especially combination with Galantamine, but it can lead to long term desensitization which is bad.

Also what i like is your connection with exercise and sleep. I think exercise promotes deep sleep in first part of sleeping.

I started this thread https://www.dreamviews.com/lucid-aid...ment-here.html long ago so you can check some experiments or even add your interresting results if you like :)

Just came back from a LD using the method and it works wonders. Went to bed again about 7am, unfortunatley I forgot when I got up, but think it was something arount 20-30 minutes.
Wish it would be a bit longer, but still a nice LD. This time it was dinosaurs that made me realize that im dreaming :lol:
I always try to write down appr when I fell asleep and for how long, what supplements i took and other things i find relevant.
One thing was different though, and that happened sometimes before. I feel asleep and/or dozed off 2 or maybe up to 4 times more before getting to the "real" LD sleep. This could be a variation too. I feel it could increase the success even more.

You see, im the type who like to doze off to movies and stuff in my couch. Luckliy most of the time I just sleep for a short moment, but my smart watch wakes me up after about 45 min.