WBTB best practices

I've been having a really long dry spell lately, and the biggest change to my sleeping schedule has been that my 9 month old has moved to his crib and he's sleeping through the night. Now that I no longer have my WBTB periods being decided for me, I have a bunch of questions on how best to do this, though I'm sure there's variance from person to person.

-Am I supposed to target waking up during the end of the REM phase?

-Does it work best to do this once, for a longer period of time (for example, sleep 6 or 7.5 hours, get up for 60min, then back to bed as in the LaBerge study?)

-Or do you do it multiple times, and get up at 4.5, 6, 7.5 hours for a shorter period?

-What style of alarm do you use? I have a regular beep-y one that I use to get up the morning, but it can be startling. Would a gentle-wake style alarm be better?


Apologies if this is all answered in a tutorial somewhere. If so, just link me and I'll officially feel silly. :oops:

You are supposed to target the end of the REM phase.

Try different lengths of staying up to see what works best for you. Start with a short WBTB and gradually experiment with longer WBTBs. Analyze the level of awareness of dreams after your WBTB to figure out which time works best. If a short time works well, which is ideal, you could attempt WBTB multiple times for multiple chances at getting lucid. If only staying awake for a longer period works better for you then you might only have time to do one WBTB.

A gentle wake style alarm would be ideal. You still want to be able to fall back asleep.