Hyu's Adventures

I figured it was about time to post something again.
Sorry, no dreams though.
I'll try to get back to that soon...

*Ramble*
I'm still having issues with headaches, but after finally finding a doc who actually seems to have some motivation to help me, my situation has improved a lot.
It got pretty bad at some point, where I spent most of my time in bed, mostly because I couldn't stand seeing any light.
But fortunately that's all over.
For some reason I had the discipline to at least take notes about my dreams, which let me tell you, is not a pleasant thing to do if you wake up every morning with a massive migraine. >_>
I'm really glad that I did though, because even though my dream recall deteriorated a bit, I immediately managed to recover as soon as my head got better.
Now that things are better, I'm trying to get this bloody thesis over with.
I'm about half way done... hopefully I can finish it within the next few weeks.
But enough about that.


So erm... usually I put music here.
Oh well, I suppose I'll just link what I'm listening to right now.




Biphasic sleep!

I always wanted to try it. The concept sounds really cool.
So much more room for activity! And those naps will surely help with lucid dreaming?
At the time I got my headaches under control I had completely lost any kind of sleep rhythm.
I figured that was as good a time as any to try to get myself into a biphasic rhythm.
Since I am of course a fucking genius (read idiot), I didn't bother looking up how you're supposed to set that up time wise.
It's called biphasic. A main phase and a nap, how hard can it be?
Well, maybe if I had read up on it I wouldn't have failed miserably at my first attempt.

I tried 7 hour main sleep with a 30 minute nap. That sounds about right?
Nope. Completely wrong. Didn't work at all.
That made me tired in the morning, yet I wasn't able to nap. Just couldn't fall asleep.
After reading up on it I quickly realized that this was way too much sleep.
You're supposed to do 4.5 hours main sleep with a 90 minute nap or 6 hours of sleep with a 20 minute power nap.
Holy shit, that's a lot less sleep than what I'm used to.
But imagine if you could gain nearly 2 hours of extra activity each day!



I decided to go with 6 hours main sleep and a 20 minute power nap.
After some more reading I figured the easiest way to get into the new rhythm would be sleep deprivation.
So I only slept for 6 hours the first day, then again for only 6 hours the next.
Woke up feeling like shit. Well, no surprise there.
I remained awake long enough to reach the time where I'm supposed to take a nap.
I was worried that I would fall asleep for too long, so I set myself an alarm for 30 minutes, taking into account the ~10 I would need to fall asleep.
Fell asleep immediately, but I needed the alarm to wake up, feeling very tired.

I tried to keep it up, but it didn't work.
Waking up after 6 hours of main sleep is sort of okay, though I certainly was feeling a lack of sleep after that.
But that 20 minute nap...
My body just refused to fall asleep at the correct time.
I only got tired like 4-6 hours too late for the nap, and then I would sleep for too long, not getting tired when it was time for main sleep.



I decided to switch to the 4.5 hours main sleep with a 90 minute nap instead.
4.5 hours was a pain at first.
Woke up feeling like shit the first 2 days, but the naps worked!
I got tired more or less around the correct time and woke up naturally after ~90 minutes, though a few times I overslept.
After a few days the new rhythm started to stabilize and I felt refreshed after both the main sleep and the nap.
It's a really weird feeling waking up after only 4.5 hours of sleep and feeling perfectly fine.
Well, I suppose for me this is a new feeling altogether.
I'm the kind of person who usually can't get his ass out of bed in the morning, but on a biphasic rhythm this is no longer the case.

I had a few more issues with not getting tired at the correct time for taking my 90 minute nap,
but I found out that this happens when I am concentrating too much beforehand.
If I'm working (on my thesis mostly) I simply do not get tired.
This sort of makes sense, so I decided to instead relax 30 minutes before nap time.
Listen to music, watch some tv, something like that.
This works brilliantly.



Lucid dreaming with a biphasic sleep rhythm
Turns out you don't magically have more lucids on a biphasic rhythm.
Or at least I don't. But it is incredibly easy to recall at least one dream after the 90 minute nap.
I often wake up straight from the dream which is pretty cool.
According to my DJ, I recall less dreams per day now that I'm on biphasic though, but more of them are lucids.
I regularly recall 2-3 dreams after 4.5 hours main sleep and another 1-2 (though mostly 1) after the 90 minute nap.
On monophasic I recalled 2-8 mostly. It was pretty random.
What is interesting though is that the last dream I have during the nap always seems to be a long dream with decent to good recall.

Once I had a stable biphasic sleep rhythm I felt confident to try to WILD during the 90 minute nap.
My success with WILD has been rather random thus far. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I never tried to do it consistently until now though.
And right off the start it worked really well!
The biggest difference to a WBTB WILD for me was that I wasn't as tired.
I could actually prevent myself from going unconscious pretty easily.
Transitioning... it sort of just worked. All of the difficulties seemed gone.
I've always had trouble transitioning until now.

The only issue I had and still have with this is that it is really difficult to tell when I've actually fallen asleep.
Usually I don't simply enter a new scene. I start out in the exact same spot I fell asleep in. (In bed)
This makes it difficult to tell when I've actually fallen asleep, and often introduces movement problems.
I always get confused because I think I can't move because I have an SP episode, even though it usually turns out
that I'm simply dreaming about not being able to move.
I usually manage to shake myself loose after a few minutes and go on lucid adventures.
Sometimes I have difficulty falling asleep when I try to WILD. I think in these situations I'm just not tired enough to do it.
I just let myself go unconscious if it takes me more than 5 minutes and hope for a DILD.

Here's my sleep log for the past 7 days: (Times indicate going to bed until waking up, NL = non-lucid)

Code:

21.08 - (4:00-8:45)(1 NL + 1 DILD) -  (17:45-19:20)(0 NL + 0 WILD + 1 DILD)
22.08 - (4:20-9:00)(3 NL + 0 DILD) -  (18:00-19:35)(0 NL + 1 WILD + 0 DILD)
23.08 - (4:30-9:15)(0 NL + 0 DILD) -  (18:15-19:50)(0 NL + 1 WILD + 0 DILD)
24.08 - (4:30-9:15)(2 NL + 1 DILD) -  (18:15-19:50)(2 NL + 0 WILD + 0 DILD)
25.08 - (4:50-9:30)(1 NL + 1 DILD) -  (18:30-20:05)(1 NL + 0 WILD + 0 DILD)
26.08 - (4:50-9:40)(7 NL + 0 DILD) -  (18:40-20:15)(0 NL + 1 WILD + 1 DILD)
27.08 - (5:00-9:45)(1 NL + 1 DILD) -  (18:45-20:20)(1 NL + 0 WILD + 0 DILD)

28 dreams ->  4,00  dreams / day
 9 lucids ->  1,29  lucids / day
 
lucidity  ->  32,35%

As you can see times are sort of shifting a few minutes day by day.
But I think I figured out why that is.
What I currently do is:
15 mins to fall asleep + 4,5 hours of sleep + 9 hours awake + 5 mins to fall asleep + 90 minutes nap which leaves me with ~8,6 hours to be awake instead of 9.
I think my mistake is going to bed when it is time to sleep. I should fall asleep at that time, not go to bed and wait another 15 minutes or so.
If I take that into account, and go to bed 15 minutes earlier for main sleep and 5 minutes earlier for the nap I think I can stabilize it.


Thoughts on biphasic sleep

• I like it.
• I pretty much have a guaranteed lucid a day, whereas on monophasic it was a lot more random. (though I did average a lucid a day)
• I spend ~6,3 hours in bed, 6 of which asleep.
  On monophasic, I slept for 8 hours a day and took at least an hour to get my ass out of bed,
  so that's ~3 more hours a day for activities.
  It may not sound like much, but it feels like a LOT of time.
• Even though I sleep less I feel less tired.
  I feel refreshed after sleep which I never did on monophasic.
• A biphasic rhythm feels odd, possibly because wake time is split up evenly.
  A single day feels sort of like 2 shorter days.
• I still eat at the same times as beforehand. (12:30 and 22:00)
• I need an alarm clock to wake up from the main sleep phase on time. (Sometimes I wake up 5min before the alarm)
• I do not need to set an alarm for the 90min nap.

Persistent worlds
(DJ snippet)

Persistent worlds. I've thought about this topic quite a bit lately.
The whole realm around Teraluna is what I'd call persistent. It's more than that.
All my actions have consequences. I cannot use dream powers. It feels real.
I am limited to understanding and training myself in the abilities that are native to this realm.
But the question that's often on my mind is: "How does it work?"
And more importantly: "How can I repeat it?"

After a lot of messing around I have sort of figured out a way how I can create (or access?) such worlds.
I wouldn't call my method consistent, nor would I suggest that it is a proper technique.
I might explain how I do it and my thoughts behind it though, maybe it'll help someone do something similar.