Bad sleeping preventing lucid dreaming?

[Darkswerk]

At one point I actually had a good sleep schedule and could fill up a page in my dream journal each night and now I can barley recall 1 dream and if I do it's just little things. Right now I am staying up all night and sleeping during the day and when I wake up I feel exhausted and have no intention to write down my what part of my dream I remember. So my problem is my sleeping.. The main reason I stay up all night is because I can not lay down and go to sleep when I want to for the life of me. I try reading before then laying down with all the lights off and even try to not move at all for 30 minutes and I am usually still wide awake and just give up and move on. The only thing that works is to take melatonin but then the next day if I don't take it again my scheduled gets messed up. Any advice on how to fix my sleeping to help with my LD?

[NyxCC]

I know what you are talking about, I get into this vicious circle every once in a while. I find that the best way to combat it is to be very determined, not just to ld, but to fix the schedule in general and then work towards it. Depending on your daily program, find the latest time you desire to wake up (not the latest time you can wake up). If you are student/in vacation and you can sleep until 12, maybe resolve that you will wake up at 10. Allow for 7-8 hrs of sleep. You don't need more for an ld. One of the tricks with lds is a good and consistent WBTB schedule and not maxing on the hours of sleep. I am writing this because earlier I thought that the longer you sleep the higher the chances of ld. Anyways, your first goal is to fix the sleep schedule. So, go to bed at let's say 1:00 and just chill out till you fall asleep. Maybe the first night you won't be able to fall asleep till 5, but you have set the alarm for 10:00, so wake up at 10. OK, so now you got 5 hrs of sleep. Maybe drink some coffee, tea, do something productive, follow your daily schedule. When time for bed hits you will be really tired so it will be easier to fall asleep. Next day wake up at 10 again, go to bed at 1:00. You just have to make that sleep schedule work by repetition, it's the same with eating habits, it takes a while, but eventually the body will get used to it. Good luck!

[Darkswerk]

So I tried doing that but I went to sleep at 2 instead and managed to fall asleep somewhere within 30 minutes but then woke up around 4. I laid in bed tried many different things I even tried counting myself into a dream doing a WBTB but nothing would work so after an hour I just had to get up. It's only 5:30 so I can still go back to sleep and get more sleep but I feel refreshed and ready for the day now.. I would say it's because the night before I didn't go to bed until some time in the morning and slept all the way till 4pm.

[NyxCC]

Oh! Well, keep trying and insist on following a good schedule. It can be very hard to get on to it at the beginning but if you stick to the same times, it will become easier. And also be careful not to deviate too much during weekends, I found that will mess up my schedule a lot. Take care and sweet dreams!

[DawgBone]

A disrupted sleep schedule, whatever the cause, can sometimes lead to INCREASED dream activity. I have been in a peculiar sleep pattern for some time now. (The cause of which I won't get into) But I tend to sleep for 4 or 5 hours and then wake. After waking it is difficult to get back to sleep. I'm usually in a semi-sleep, semi-awake state for an hour or two before I can get back to sleep. But once I get back to sleep, I have many vivid dreams towards morning, some of them lucid. This is a variation of the WBTB technique. The trick is not to fight it. If you get back to sleep right away, fine. If it takes an hour or two, that's fine too. The dreams will come, and they will be vivid and interesting.