I've had 13 times (I average close to once a week since I started working on LDs) where I have become lucid in my dreams. However, I THINK I could get Lucid a lot more but need your thoughts on how to handle my problem:

First of all, I'm married, and do not want to mess up my wife's schedule if I can help it, since she isn't that big on my LD'ing. We go to sleep around 11:30pm, and I USED to wake up around 6:30-6:45. Now that I am dream journaling and recalling dreams at night, I've found I will wake up around 1:30, 3:30, and 5:30 (give or take 15-30 minutes). I don't journal then but I rethink the dreams so that I get them clear in my mind and then journal in the morning). These appear to be my dream cycles. Unfortunately, I've now found that waking up after 5:00, I cannot go back to sleep. Once in a while I will, and that is usually when I have an LD, but 90% of the time times I cannot go back to sleep... sometimes that is true for awakening after about 4:15! My mind is too active then, I believe. I've gotten off caffine, and am trying some other things (light exercise before bed, minimize TV or computer, more exposure to sunlight during the day, trying some basic meditation techniques, etc).

I'm now thinking I better just work with my sleep cycle as best I can, and have several alternatives I'm thinking of. Any thoughts on the best approach?

a) doing a more active WBTB... and get up at 5:30 for a couple hours. My wife leaves at 7:45... would that be too late for me to try to go back to sleep?

b) Or I could get up for 15-30 minutes and read to get sleepy But then I might only have about 1 hour before I get up (might work on the weekends).

c) I also have an Isochronic Tones audio... So I COULD maybe plug on the headphones at 5:30am and maybe that would get me back to sleep.

d) Or, I work from home and could probably find a time in the afternoon to use the Isocronic Tones and go for a WILD or DILD in the afternoon (I asusme thats possible?). PS if you use Isochronic Tones does this improve your own "medidation" abilities over time? In otherwords, do you ween off the tones or do you just continue to use it?

e) I originally hoped I could just DILD at night and not change any of my sleep habits, but am now thinking that might not be feasible. But I was wondering if I could DILD in an earlier dream cycle (I did have at least a couple lucid experiences in the earlier cycles... 1:00-1:30am) but according to what I've read those are "low percentage" times... certainly my dream recall is much worst then unless I wake up right in the dream. Anyway, I've heard the 2 hrs before awakening are the best, which is my highest percentage time. But, are there people out there that can LD earlier at night, on a regular frequency?

Thanks for your insights.