Thread: REM Rebound Effect May Open Doors for Lucid Dreaming!!

(I'd wish the media would stop with the 90 minutes sleep cycle error: it's close to impossible to watch someone experience a 90 minute cycle, there's just so many factors altering that number, and still there's loads of apps that work under that faulty principle.)
Thanks for linking the article This is something known around here, but it's always cool to see how scientists study this particular aspects of sleep - I'd hardly consider myself for sleep deprivation experiments

but according to this article, my dreams may be even more vivid, which would increase my chances of having a LD.

Dream vividness and lucid dreaming are not the same thing. If you have a good diet, your dream's vividness should increase, but your lucidity will not. Like the study mentions, certain medications can increase the vividness, but users still don't report an "increase" of lucid dreams.

That study also shows not much the "loose a night of sleep" derived REM rebound, but the "interrupt REM and the brain will build pressure which leads to an increase in REM during the night", which I find even more interesting

Thanks for replying. I know I'm a bit of a newb around here but I'm certainly fascinated by this and want to try it out for myself. What do you mean the 90 minutes is a myth?

StarletDreamer

What do you mean the 90 minutes is a myth?

It's not a exactly a myth, it's simply an inaccurate number and an oversimplification of the sleep cycle (we will see why this is important in a bit).
So, we experience sleep cycles that extend throughout the night, each of them dividing in several stages of sleep. People like to average these cycles in 90 minutes, and many apps for mobile phones work under this idea. The truth however, is that if you look at a simple hypnogram (like the one below) you realize that there's not really a 90minutes cycle.



This is because not all humans have the same sleep cycles, and they all differ from one another regarding their circadian rythms. For example, while yours may be 24 hours, another person's might be of around 25. Circadian rhythm is naturally endogenous (it originates in your organism), but they are still influenced (and to a large part, regulated) by the so called Zeitgeber, through a chronobiological proccess called entrainment. Zeitgeber refer to external or environmental cues, and the most common one is day-light (isn't it fascinating that you're sleep is being regulated to a large extent by the earth rotation ?). When we lived before electricity, our sleep cycles were much better regulated: during the day you're melatonin levels would be low, and as you reached the night, the lack of light would trigger the pineal gland to increase it's production. You'd go to sleep, and with sunlight, the process would reverse.
The problem is that we don't live in that environmental settings anymore: with electricity, you receive significant amounts of light when you shouldn't, like that last peak at the fridge before going to bed, or setting your alarm in the phone with an intense bright. Besides, you still have to take into account the chronobiology, for example the seasons and their effect on our sleep: sometimes a 10-20 minutes difference in waking up depending on the current season can lead to significant improvements on one's sleep.
Also, you also have to realize that it's easier to train your body to wake up at a certain time (I'm gonna save the scientifical jargon on this one cause the post is getting long), so those calculators that tell you "go to bed at 00.00, wake up at 7:30, and you'll sleep for 5 cycles and wake up right after REM" are naturally flawed. They don't take into account the pre-onset period (which is around 15 minutes, but once again, this varies in loads of factors), and they assume everyone's sleep cycle duration is 90 minutes (might even be that way for 1 person, but certainly doesn't work like for others).

As you can see, you'll be much better working in a basis of "waking up at the same time" every day, creating a stable pattern, than using the 90 minutes cycle, which can be totally unrelated to your actual sleep pattern.

i've noticed this from my insomnia as well. i thought it was a well-known fact?not trying to be condescending, just from personal experience and years of insomnia, i noticed this pattern of crazier dreams and easier WILD successes.