Thread: A couple of questions regarding sleep schedules

Originally Posted by Invictus

I have some questions.

First of all, will attempting a WILD sometime in the late morning or afternoon (on a weekend) increase or decrease my chances of LDing, if I normally sleep at night?

Second, I know the uberman sleep schedule is good for maximizing how much time you can be awake and doing stuff, but how could it help for LDing? Wouldn't less sleep = less chances to LD?

In short;

This is all dependent on your circadian rhythm. This is your internal clock that pays attention to when you normally go to sleep and light levels around you. It really makes no difference what time of day you try to WILD so long as you do it at your usual bed time.

The main point is to try and induce dreaming in any instance. You ought not try to sleep deprive yourself to induce LD's as this is not a guarantee that you will remember the dreams at all. Instead, try to simply enhance you recollection and attention to details. In this case, you will be able to have LD's at anytime whenever you sleep.

More information on sleep schedules;

During a night of sleep, the brain waves of a young adult record by the electroencephalogram (EEG) gradually slow down and become larger as the individual passes into deeper stages of slow wave sleep. After about an hour, the brain re-emerges through the same series of stages, and there is usually a brief period of REM sleep (on dark area of graph), during which the EEG is similar to wakefulness. The body is completely relaxed, the person is deeply unresponsive and usually is dreaming. The cycle repeats over the course of the night, with more REM sleep, and less time spent in the deeper stages of slow wave sleep as the night progresses.



Electrophysiological recordings of cerebral activity suggest an approximate neuronal correlate of the milieu (environment) within which conscious experience is unified. The intrinsic electrical activity of the cerebral cortex can change dramatically as a function of the level of arousal and attention. The measurement of electroencephalographic waves obtained by placing electrodes on the scalp, as well as single-neuron recordings in animals, reveal distinct patterns of spontaneous an evoked activity in different states of sleep and wakefulness, including paradoxical or rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep and attentive states.

Electroencephalograms of awake and alert subjects display rapid and irregular low-amplitude waves. When the subject closes his eyes and becomes drowsy, the activity becomes regular and rhythmic, with a frequency of about 10 cycles per second. Falling asleep, with loss of consciousness, is accompanied by a gradual transition to much slower waves (1-5 cycles per second) having very large amplitude. From time to time these waves are disrupted by sudden high-frequency burst of low-voltage electrical activity. The slow waves correspond to the phases of REM sleep, which ordinarily are associated with a unique state of consciousness-dreaming. Local high-frequency firings (about 40 cycles per second) are also recorded in alert subjects in attentive states related to the processing of representations in the brain. In recent years there has been a suggestion that these 40 Hz oscillations represent the neuronal correlate of consciousness. Half a century of careful research has shown, however, that much more is involved than this.

Despite the fact that these electrical activities occur in or near the cerebral cortex, they involve populations of neuron located in nuclei relatively far away from the cerebral cortex, though these neurons are strongly and reciprocally associated with it. The thalamic nuclei play a strategic role in the brain, serving both as generators of internal electrical activity and as relay stations for signals arriving from the external world. Two types of thalamic nuclei are distinguished, corresponding to each of these functions.

During slow-wave sleep we are not conscious. Often, however, we have a limited, though usually fragmentary, recollection of the dreaming episodes experienced during REM sleep. When we are awake and alert, we are seldom aware that our brains are the seat of intense non-conscious activity. When we are walking or running, for example, we are not usually conscious of the precise position of our feet and joints; nor are we usually aware of the beating of our hearts or the rhythm of our breathing. At any given moment we consult only a small fraction of our repertoire of long-term memories. Whether or not the "unconscious" operates in the manner described by psychoanalysis remains a matter of debate; but its existence is not in doubt, nor that it arises from no conscious operations of the brain that are intertwined with those of our conscious inner life.

The idea is by no means new. The German philosopher Johann Friedrich Herbart, in Psychologie als Wissenshaft (1824-1825), introduced the notion of a threshold of consciousness beyond which "inhibited" or unconscious ideas become "real" or conscious. About a century later, with the work of Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud, the question aroused intense speculation, but only recently has it become the object of scientific study.

What do you think...?

~

"In short.."

Originally Posted by Tarsier

"In short.."

In any case, I'm assuming only the first two paragraphs were the short part of that post.