How to wake up in the middle of the night?

[MJMax]

I almost never wake up in the middle of the night. I think I am a relatively deep sleeper (good or bad for lucid dreaming?). I've heard that to increase dream recall, you need to wake up in the middle of the night to record dreams. How would I go about doing this? Would an alarm clock work well? Is it completely necessary to do this to aid dream recall (mine is terrible)? Is it possible that I could still develop great dream recall? Thanks in advance everybody!

[JamesLD]

use affirmations, they really helped for me. as your falling asleep say to yourself in your head "I will wake up after every dream and will remember my dreams" over and over until you dose off. this worked the first night i tried it and it really increased my recall. good luck

[Sugarglider11]

James is right, while falling asleep just tell yourself that you will wake up after all of your dreams and remember your dreams. Also you could drink as much water as possible before going to sleep, this normally wakes me up right after a dream. Good luck I'm sure you will start to remember sever dreams every night very soon, and welcome to dreamviews.

[slash112]

Actually, if I remember correctly, it is when you wake up while you are still in REM that you remember dreams most. So tell yourself you will wake up in the middle of a dream or something of the sort. But to be honest, I just use an alarm clock. Easiest way. For me, the question is not how to wake up, it is how to stay awake. I tend to have lost my motivation when I wake up, because I am so tired, so i end up going back to sleep again. Of course the only way to solve that is will power. But I am talking about WBTB, and you are just talking about recall. So this problem doesn't matter quite as much as you just need to write down your dreams and go back to sleep.

[StrangeDreamsGuy]

Drink a toooonnnn of water and use affirmations.

[Kordan]

StrangeDreamsGuy: Drink a toooonnnn of water and use affirmations. Just be careful about how much of a "toooonnnn" of water you drink

[StrangeDreamsGuy]

Just be careful about how much of a "toooonnnn" of water you drink Well, I'd say 400-750 mL; enough to be sufficient, but not enough to die. But don't keep drinking if you feel sick

[Kordan]

Kidney's exploding=BAD

[TheWeirdnessSymposium]

My affirmation is, "I will wake up about 4am and remember a vivid dream." It started working on the first day. Here's my latest thoughts/approach on affirmations. In Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, the experts always recommend writing your thoughts down or you won't benefit as much from CBT. I suspect the same applies to affirmations: you should write them down, and the more ways you represent your affirmation the more ways it will be recognised by your brain (and hopefully sink in). At the moment, I write lines, just like school days. The line I'll write for an affirmation is, "I'll realise I'm dreaming, RC and fly." About the first twenty lines I'll do in black ink. Next twenty in red ink. Next twenty with a thick felt pen. Then I mix techniques. Sometimes I'll write larger so the letters cover three lines. Sometime's I'll make a tune as I read affirmation's words. Sometimes I pause at the end of the line and visualise the affirmation being successful in a previous dream, or a fantasy dream. Last night I filled three pages of A4 paper with an affirmation, "I'll realise I'm dreaming, RC and fly." Interestingly, in a dream last night I dreamt of doing a test at school, and of a biplane and helicopter crashing. So I think what I have also done is create a dreamsign.

[Wilford111]

My affirmation is, "I will wake up about 4am and remember a vivid dream." It started working on the first day. Here's my latest thoughts/approach on affirmations. In Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, the experts always recommend writing your thoughts down or you won't benefit as much from CBT. I suspect the same applies to affirmations: you should write them down, and the more ways you represent your affirmation the more ways it will be recognised by your brain (and hopefully sink in). At the moment, I write lines, just like school days. The line I'll write for an affirmation is, "I'll realise I'm dreaming, RC and fly." About the first twenty lines I'll do in black ink. Next twenty in red ink. Next twenty with a thick felt pen. Then I mix techniques. Sometimes I'll write larger so the letters cover three lines. Sometime's I'll make a tune as I read affirmation's words. Sometimes I pause at the end of the line and visualise the affirmation being successful in a previous dream, or a fantasy dream. Last night I filled three pages of A4 paper with an affirmation, "I'll realise I'm dreaming, RC and fly." Interestingly, in a dream last night I dreamt of doing a test at school, and of a biplane and helicopter crashing. So I think what I have also done is create a dreamsign. That is a very, very interesting technique that I've never heard of before... but it looks like it could work! I will be trying this soon

[JohnnyBoi]

Yep, use an alarm clock

[nightronics]

I can naturally wake myself up by just saying i will wake up really early. But yeah, a clock with a ring that shuts its self off is especially good for WBTBs