Thread: Does tiredness affect your chances of being lucid?

So, I was wondering...
If you happened to be really tired just before you went to bed, would it increase your chances of being lucid? Because I'm pretty exhausted and I'm going to attempt to have a lucid dream tonight, so I was wondering if my tiredness would help me fall into a lucid dream easier? What do you think?

Thanks, I appreciate any comments (:
Happy lucid dreaming!
~TheDreamCloud

I read something about if it's mental fatigue perhaps it would increase the time for your REM stages more than your deep sleep stages, which would increase your time for dreams and consequently give you more opportunities of realizing it's a dream. On the other hand if it's physical tiredness, your deep sleep stages would last longer in order to repair your body, which would decrease you REM periods and would reduce somehow your possibilities, although I know there's people who is able to become lucid during those blurry dreams that seem to happen during deep sleep stages. I don't know. Usually when I'm physically exhausted, it's very hard for me to have a good recall because of I cannot easily wake up to take notes after waking up from a dream, and if I got to wake up, sometimes it's unreadable what I put on the paper . Sometimes I wake up knowing I was lucid last night but I barely remember something about it, if it's not just the feeling of me being lucid. Anyway, the most important thing, in my opinion, is your motivation for becoming lucid and something to help you wake up to take notes if you're writing a journal.

Hahahaa, as I posted my reply, I realized Box77 gave a much better answer than mine!
I removed my previous post, but I will say that I experience very vivid dreams after mental fatigue, like recently when I have been preparing for exams.
However I also sleep really well, after physical exercise (physical fatigue), but I'm not sure if I get intense dreams in this sleep.

Tiredness really does affect my ability to WILD though, as you need to remain alert whilst falling asleep, which is a lot harder for me if I'm tired.

Enjoy another 2 cents!
Ciao!

I think that if you are really, really exhausted, you will have difficulty attaining lucidity. You will probably just succumb to sleep and non-lucidity, and dream yourself through the night without trying to question anything. That's just my take though; I'm sure some people are different!

Thanks so much everyone! All your explanations were really helpful! (:
Sometimes when I'm really tired I find it hard to focus, especially when doing the MILD technique. When that happens I usually of drift off into a non-lucid dream. I think I would be better off catching up on my sleep rather then trying to lucid dream on the days that I'm physically exhausted. But on the other days, I will try to lucid dream every night, or at least, whenever I can. (:
Thanks again for your help everyone!

Fatigue can play a big role, just a surmise, I believe its a derived condition. Stress , Life conditions and exhaustion can cause it, as well as cetain emotional states, personal traumas; and blood pressure. I am no scienntist, just well read, that last is always a concern.

I LD best and easiest when I'm laying down for a 1 hour - 1.5 hour nap and I'm totally shredded / exhausted.

Slip right in, most times.

I've found that it will help your chances to be physically tired and hurt your chances to be mentally tired, which seems to be the opposite of what box77 said. If you think about it, it makes sense though; if you are physically tired your body will fall asleep quickly while your mind is still alert, but if you are mentally tired your mind will tend to wander and you will have a hard time maintaining the focus and awareness that is necessary to realize that you are dreaming. Perhaps this only applies to attempting WILD.

Thanks guys, this helps a lot!

^ Yep. What I was gonna say exactly. Exactly.

Hey, that post wasn't there when I started typing - this was supposed to be directly under Xaq's post.

Ahah, you just happened to post one minute after I did, Darkmatters xD

For me, mental fatigue is the worst when it comes to seeking lucidity, and it makes it very difficult for me to remember my dreams in the morning, although my normal recall is quite good. As for physical fatigue, I had heard it helped, but it makes me fall back asleep again when I wake in the morning and when I wake up again, I'll have lost details of the dreams. I guess everyone is different for this

Originally Posted by martakartus

For me, mental fatigue is the worst when it comes to seeking lucidity, and it makes it very difficult for me to remember my dreams in the morning, although my normal recall is quite good. As for physical fatigue, I had heard it helped, but it makes me fall back asleep again when I wake in the morning and when I wake up again, I'll have lost details of the dreams. I guess everyone is different for this

Yes, it must be different for everybody I guess. (:

Apparently it would depend too, on what technique are you focused on to achieve lucidity.

For me when I'm really tired all day long, then I won't remember many dreams that.

I think I've found out that personally, I have lucid dreams and dreams in general, more frequently on the days that I'm less physically tired. But that's just me. This could be different for other people (:

What about if it's both mental and physical fatigue which are taking place? Are they really happening in a separate ways? How could it be determined that it's only one of them? Am I wrong or in both cases one have the tendency to fall asleep.

From Fatigue (medical) - Wikipedia

.../Fatigue and ‘feelings of fatigue’ are often confused/...

.../Mental fatigue has also been shown to decrease physical performance/...

.../Both [Compared with sleepiness] are often used interchangeably and even categorized under the description of 'being tired.'/...

It looks like perhaps we are not talking under the same parameters here.