Sleep Schedule

So after reading through many threads and even some other's dream journals and workbooks, I have come to realize that many of us here on DV seem to sleep for a couple hours, and then end up waking up, and repeat this process throughout the night. I don't do this, though, at least not naturally. I usually on the weekdays go to bed at about 8:45, and fall asleep at about 9-9:30, and wake up at about 6:45. I always sleep through the night, unless I'm sick or something. What would be the optimal sleep schedule, taking into account that on weekdays I have to be out of bed by 7 AM. Also, why the split sleep so many people seem to have?

First of all if this isn't going to be your workbook then we need to have this moved.

To your question, a lot of us intentionally wake up to do WBTB after about 4-6 hours or so of sleep. There is something about waking up early in the morning and staying for awhile and then going back to sleep. You might have to find whats right for you but I set an alarm to get up 2.5 hours before my morning alarm and stay awake any where from 5 - 30mins meditating or reading something lucid dreaming related. May be this is what you are seeing?

Some people use technique called Wake - Back - To - Bed (WBTB). It's most often used with induction technique called WILD, but it can be usefull with DILD too.

The idea behind it is, that after some hours of sleep your REM is longer than it was at the beginning of sleep. It's also closer to the time when you fall asleep, so you don't have to wait for it through NREM too long.

The second reason is, that when you wake up your mind in the middle of the night, you should be able to stay aware while your body is falling asleep to have a WILD LD.

You can either use an alarm to wake yourself up, or drink water before going to sleep, so you wake up because you have to use the restroom. Or you can wake yourself up by mantras.

If you are planning to WBTB to help you with WILDs, here is a WILD (sageous) tutorial, which also talks about WBTB and timing. Happy dreams:alien: