Thread: how do you figure out when your REM cycle is?

Well appernetly you can use the whole autosuggestion stuff to tell yourself to wake up immediately after you dream. But what I did was set my alarm to a certain number of hours after I went to bed and kept reducing the number of hours, until I woke up during a dream or without having one.
Ah, I explained that kinda bad, but it makes sense

i get it lol thx

On average it takes most people 90 minutes to cycle through the various stages of sleep, with REM being at the tail end of that cycle.
This process continues throughout the night with the period spent in REM becoming longer with each cycle (and in turn a lower amount of time spent in the other stages.)

Stage 4 (the deepest stage) in general will cease after the first two 90 minute cycles. And after normally three 90 minute cycles (or around 5 hours sleep), you will be cycling only through stages 1, 2 and REM - It is at this point that REM becomes most prolonged.

So with a little thought, if you set an alarm to awake you after either:90,180, 270,360,450 minutes you will be either in REM or just finishing a period of REM. Clearly the later periods of REM are best suited for Lucid Dream practice, as you get more time spent in REM for your efforts.

Obviously deduct some time from these numbers if you want to awaken before or definitely during REM.

Remember though that this is an "average", and each of us has a unique sleep cycle, which can vary somewhat between indivduals. Experiment with the template outlined above, and find what works best for you.

Hope that helps a little.

Just did a quick google, and found this graph that will help you visualise what is going on:

Originally Posted by spaceexplorer

Just did a quick google, and found this graph that will help you visualise what is going on:

Whoa that graph is epic! Thanks.

that uber helped thx

This saved me a lot of time, thanks!

Originally Posted by spaceexplorer

Just did a quick google, and found this graph that will help you visualise what is going on:

So if you wanna wake up for a WBTB for DILD, do you need to wake up before, during or after the rem cycle?

Originally Posted by Crashyy

So if you wanna wake up for a WBTB for DILD, do you need to wake up before, during or after the rem cycle?

If you want do DILD, you should wake up before REM. If you do DEILD, then during REM. I think I got it right.

just make sure to always go to bed at the same time