Thread: Computer knowledge needed.

I've been away for a long, long time. My attempts to have lucid dreams stopped about the same time I stopped coming to the site, which must have been years ago. And I'd like to get back into it. Problem is, keeping a textual journal never worked for me. I'd like to use my new laptop, but waking it up from Hibernate every time is too slow.

So I was wondering: Is it practical to put my laptop to sleep as a long-term alternative to shutting it down or putting it in Hibernate? For instance, say I'm done with a night's browsing, when I go to turn it off is it alright to put it in Sleep with the intention of quickly waking it up in the morning to write in a dream journal? Would it be possible to do this every night, or would it have serious implications over time?

It would not have any serious implications, although Id recommend shutting it down fully every so often, this keeps it clean and speeds it up. It lets the hardware "rest."

One thing to note about sleeping vs. hibernation is that your laptop will likely use more energy (unless it has some sort of hybrid-sleep) so, if you like to leave it detached from the charge cable, it will drain the battery.

Repeatedly putting it into sleep or hibernate should not negatively impact performance as long as you turn it off at some point during the day.

Originally Posted by Domition

It would not have any serious implications, although Id recommend shutting it down fully every so often, this keeps it clean and speeds it up. It lets the hardware "rest."

One thing to note about sleeping vs. hibernation is that your laptop will likely use more energy (unless it has some sort of hybrid-sleep) so, if you like to leave it detached from the charge cable, it will drain the battery.

Repeatedly putting it into sleep or hibernate should not negatively impact performance as long as you turn it off at some point during the day.

My computer has a hybrid sleep, it lasts for quite a while when unplugged.

And it's all SSD, lucky me.

Back to the subject, I agree with domition that doing an occasional shutdown during the day will improve performance.

You'll forget your dreams by the time you open it most likely, why didn't the journal ever work?

When I wake up, I put little notes about my dreams into my phone. Just key phrases and some details so I will remember the dream later. Then later in the day I put the actual dream entry on my computer and look back on the notes I put into my phone. I add more detail when I type it up. This could maybe work for you if you don't want to leave your laptop on hibernate all night.

The written journal never worked for me because my writing is as slow as hell. I get about 80 WPM typing, but I've never been able to write quickly. (Or legibly.)

I always keep it plugged in, but it's not the newest laptop in the world, so I think I'll just stick to Hibernation by default again. Shame, I guess. Probably means I won't keep up a dream journal. Oh well. Time for another 3 year absence from lucid dreaming I guess. :S