WBTB Question - How Long

Re WBTB, how long is best to do so.

Appreciate different people, different times but in the Advanced Lucid Dreaming - The Power of Supplements book he recommends taking the supplements & getting straight back to sleep asap.

Other views are 30 - 60 minutes, so any views on this & as as add on.

3 nights back I was staying somewhere, I woke up around 5.30am, got dressed, drove home, which took about 45 minutes, had a fag & then went back to bed. Had a 21mg nicotine patch on but that was all & then had a pretty good lucid within a couple of hours of sleep, so can that be considered a 60 minute WBTB with all that driving & being fully awake or was I just lucky on that occasion?

For DILD practitioners, longer WBTB is always better, BUT, you have to get back to sleep. So it's a game of chicken against yourself. That's why it's safer to err on the shorter side. And you need to factor in how stimulating your activities are during the WBTB. Moreover, each person has their own commitments in waking life. If you have to be up and out to school or work at a certain hour, losing the game of chicken may have even worse consequences. For all those reasons, it's not unexpected that many will commit to around 5 minutes or less. But under ideal conditions and no consequences, feel free to attempt 45+ minutes. Of course at some extreme point, you're talking about a whole different sleep session, so like 3+ hours is no longer a WBTB.

Using supplements changes the calculus because they are, effectively, replacing a very stimulating activity. Or perhaps reducing stimulation with a sedating effect. And you'd have to consider how long they take to release or how their effect ramps up, so the stimulation may be displaced in time compared to the waking period. So here, erring on the side of safety probably reduces the time to zero.

For WILD, it's different. In DILD, you always want the high awareness to kick in because you're already asleep. With WILD, you're looking to find a sweet-spot of balancing awareness without too much stimulation. If you are awake for a period of time before WILD, it's more a matter of routine and preparation. Or perhaps setting up a possible DILD as a backup if the WILD fails. Yet another balancing act, which is why playing in the 5-15 minute range seems like a safe zone.

Sisyphus is right, some times it is better to just stay up for a long time and pray you can get back to sleep. I don't do supplements (because I think they are not as effective as anything else) so I won't comment on that.

I personally think that it is a "feeling". I wake up about 4+ times a night and each of them I write down some tags and wait until I hit that "feeling" the feeling is the right amount of awake, but the right amount of asleep. This makes it easier to DILD and WILD, so I try for both when I sleep. :) Worst case scenario is always insomnia, so I always lean more towards sleep rather than awake, because I will have more WBTBs later anyways, no need to blow those by staying up too long the first time. Usually my last WBTB of the night is about 15-20 minutes because I can only ruin 1 WBTB that way.

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I wake up about 4+ times a night

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Oh good, not just me then...

I don't get "The feeling", I've only DILD once & that was probably by luck of trying it at the right time, in general it takes me a good 45 mins of lying around to get to sleep & even then I'm not guaranteed so because of this I have started setting my alarm for every hour so it wakes me up shortly after falling asleep so I can quickly pop my 5-HTP & go straight back. Pain in the ass but then I sleep very irregular hours & a lot during the day.

I don't have the patience to do more than 1 WBTB, but we'll see how tonight's mass supplement attack goes for encouragement...

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Originally Posted by TechHeadSteve

Oh good, not just me then...

I don't get "The feeling", I've only DILD once & that was probably by luck of trying it at the right time, in general it takes me a good 45 mins of lying around to get to sleep & even then I'm not guaranteed so because of this I have started setting my alarm for every hour so it wakes me up shortly after falling asleep so I can quickly pop my 5-HTP & go straight back. Pain in the ass but then I sleep very irregular hours & a lot during the day.

I don't have the patience to do more than 1 WBTB, but we'll see how tonight's mass supplement attack goes for encouragement...

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Well, I have noticed that people that take supplements a lot have a lot of restless nights, and a lot of dreamless nights. I would recommend waiting until later in LDing to use them (if you use them at all), right now the change is going to be very slight in percentage of LDing, but it can wreck your recall.

Here is a couple threads I would recommend for someone starting LDing.
http://www.dreamviews.com/dreamviews...e-told-me.html
http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...s-secrets.html