Thread: How to differentiate the waking at the end or the middle of a REM

I would like to join to this question, since this happens to me a lot (like in my single real lucid of December 2015)!
I actually tried to stabilize, but it only gave me few more moments...

Yes please answer thiiiiiiissss someone! I think if you wake up and have SP, ten your in your REM period. But you don't always get SP from waking up in your REM. So a distinct feeling for each would be nice.

I have a different solution for this, guys: stop caring about REM.

Seriously.

Things like concern about REM period timing, attempting to recognize during the dream when it is ending, basically assuming -- thanks to all those helpful "experts" on the web -- that REM periods are assigned a specific amount of time and cannot be prolonged, and assuming that you are required to wake up after REM, only serve to muddle your LD's with needless worry, and elevates REM to a status it likely does not deserve.

I, for one, have never had a problem with REM periods or dreams ending. Sure, I've prematurely woken during my LD's plenty of times, but if I want to stay in the LD I simply DEILD back in, without any concern about whether I am still in REM or not... yet somehow I almost always wind up back in a dream. I've continued DEILD chains for as long as 5 hours without seeing (or having concern about) my REM period's end, and I have stretched individual dreams for well over an hour without DEILD: shouldn't either of these things be impossible if REM periods define the length of our dreams by lasting a specific, predetermined amount of time?. I've done all these things and never once thought "Oh, it's been more than 90 minutes, so REM and my dream must be finishing soon," or "Oh shoot, the imagery is fading; REM -- and my LD -- must be ending now."

Sure, that last paragraph was all an "I, for one" anecdotal statement, but I have heard similar from many other dreamers, and these sort of things were considered normal before popular websites and various experts began to spend more time trying to define the LD'ing experience than trying to experience the LD'ing experience.

REM, along with every other human function, does not last a precise or predetermined amount of time during your sleep cycle. All those numbers and charts you see are averages, and not universal laws. Dreams fade for many reasons other than an end to a REM period (i.e., a long LD tends to tax your unconscious dreaming engine, so sometimes it might just take a pause while it spools up a new scene or plot. Also, your body might be waking up for some other reason, and your dream is fading as part of the process -- even though you are still in your REM period) . If you try to approach prolonging your LD's (or, rather, enjoying lengthy stretches of lucidity) by establishing limits like REM periods ending, then you will wind up worrying about those limits during the dream, even if they are not an issue.

Yes, you will see your dream fade occasionally, and sometimes there will be nothing you can do about it (other than wake up and do a DEILD, of course). And yes, REM periods do end. But, thanks to expectation, worrying about the fades, and trying during the dream to anticipate the end of your REM period will only invite its conclusion (or, perhaps, a dream about its conclusion). LD'ing is all about maintaining a calm sense of self-awareness in the here & now; if you start worrying about what will happen in the future, you are doing little more than asking what you are worrying about to manifest now.

tl;dr: REM periods are fluid things that can be extended, returned to, and above all fully ignored. If you learn to avoid wasting your moments of lucidity on imagined barriers like the end of your REM period, then you will find your dreams much more enjoyable, and maybe lasting a bit longer.

As long as I'm here:

Originally Posted by MadzAssassin

Yes please answer thiiiiiiissss someone! I think if you wake up and have SP, ten your in your REM period. But you don't always get SP from waking up in your REM. So a distinct feeling for each would be nice.

I think I made my "SP doesn't matter" speech to you on another thread, so I'll keep this short: I highly recommend that you do not use SP as a definer for anything in your LD practice. Yes, people who suffer from actual Sleep Paralysis can use it, upon waking, as a tool for lucidity, but most of us (like, 90% or more of us) will rarely if ever "wake up and have SP," so looking for it does not make much sense. Also, you can have still SP after your REM period has ended (indeed, I'm pretty sure that that is basically what actual SP is, BTW: the continuing of Rem Atonia after your mind has left REM and woken up), so even if you find yourself in SP upon waking, you might not be in REM.

Again: Enjoy your dream in a real Here & Now sort of way, try not to concern yourself with what might happen next, and you might in time find your LD's lasting longer, surviving brief fades & wake-ups, and generally much more fun.

This is a very good question to ask, but also a very hard one to answer. Most likely the answer will vary for each person so finding a distinct feeling for each is very unlikely as well as there are many other reasons why we wake up from dreams (Intense emotions, not enough estabilisation, focusing on your waking body, end of REM, subconscious kicking you out from lucidity and dream, etc).

With all that said, I don't think there is a clear answer or that I have one based on my own experiences, but I will try. For me lucid dreams tend to end with the dream either turning black and going into the void where I can wake or sometimes carry on dreaming, or the dream itself collapses and I wake and can also carry on dreaming at times. Now, on both of these scenarios I have been able to go back into dreaming, but not always. So what is the difference? One thing is whether I will move or not. Sometimes my body seems to be more paralysed than others, but it is never fully paralysed, only my position may be comfortable and locked, making me less likely to move. So it's not exactly as mentioned above where my body would be fully paralysed. At least this is not the case for me as I have never encountered my body in sleep paralysis in waking life. But I have had false awakenings of sleep paralysis so I know what and how it is.

Anyways, another thing which is more important I guess is whether or not you feel tired or not after you wake. So perhaps waking might not be the problem at all here, but whether you are able to go back into a dream or not. Now, here there are distinct times when I wake from a dream and can easily return to one and other times when I can still sleep but there is a delay or when I know I will be unable to sleep anymore because I am too alert or have had enough rest or whatever (It's a feeling I can't really describe any better). So to answer the query as to when to know to fight for the dream. Always I guess, but you can fight for the dream by also going into another dream instead of remaining in the same one (as OP already said). There will then be times when you must make a choice, to carry on into another dream and risk forgetting details of the dream, or to get up to write down some notes on the previous dream but risk not being able to enter another dream.

Not sure if I was able to help anyone at all but I certainly don't have a feeling of when it's the end of REM or not whilst inside the dream, only of when I can return to sleep straight away or not. Which I guess would be the equivalent or closest to the end of REM.

Originally Posted by Sageous

I have a different solution for this, guys: stop caring about REM.

Seriously.

Things like concern about REM period timing, attempting to recognize during the dream when it is ending, basically assuming -- thanks to all those helpful "experts" on the web -- that REM periods are assigned a specific amount of time and cannot be prolonged, and assuming that you are required to wake up after REM, only serve to muddle your LD's with needless worry, and elevates REM to a status it likely does not deserve.

I, for one, have never had a problem with REM periods or dreams ending. Sure, I've prematurely woken during my LD's plenty of times, but if I want to stay in the LD I simply DEILD back in, without any concern about whether I am still in REM or not... yet somehow I almost always wind up back in a dream. I've continued DEILD chains for as long as 5 hours without seeing (or having concern about) my REM period's end, and I have stretched individual dreams for well over an hour without DEILD: shouldn't either of these things be impossible if REM periods define the length of our dreams by lasting a specific, predetermined amount of time?. I've done all these things and never once thought "Oh, it's been more than 90 minutes, so REM and my dream must be finishing soon," or "Oh shoot, the imagery is fading; REM -- and my LD -- must be ending now."

Sure, that last paragraph was all an "I, for one" anecdotal statement, but I have heard similar from many other dreamers, and these sort of things were considered normal before popular websites and various experts began to spend more time trying to define the LD'ing experience than trying to experience the LD'ing experience.

REM, along with every other human function, does not last a precise or predetermined amount of time during your sleep cycle. All those numbers and charts you see are averages, and not universal laws. Dreams fade for many reasons other than an end to a REM period (i.e., a long LD tends to tax your unconscious dreaming engine, so sometimes it might just take a pause while it spools up a new scene or plot. Also, your body might be waking up for some other reason, and your dream is fading as part of the process -- even though you are still in your REM period) . If you try to approach prolonging your LD's (or, rather, enjoying lengthy stretches of lucidity) by establishing limits like REM periods ending, then you will wind up worrying about those limits during the dream, even if they are not an issue.

Yes, you will see your dream fade occasionally, and sometimes there will be nothing you can do about it (other than wake up and do a DEILD, of course). And yes, REM periods do end. But, thanks to expectation, worrying about the fades, and trying during the dream to anticipate the end of your REM period will only invite its conclusion (or, perhaps, a dream about its conclusion). LD'ing is all about maintaining a calm sense of self-awareness in the here & now; if you start worrying about what will happen in the future, you are doing little more than asking what you are worrying about to manifest now.

tl;dr: REM periods are fluid things that can be extended, returned to, and above all fully ignored. If you learn to avoid wasting your moments of lucidity on imagined barriers like the end of your REM period, then you will find your dreams much more enjoyable, and maybe lasting a bit longer.

As long as I'm here:


I think I made my "SP doesn't matter" speech to you on another thread, so I'll keep this short: I highly recommend that you do not use SP as a definer for anything in your LD practice. Yes, people who suffer from actual Sleep Paralysis can use it, upon waking, as a tool for lucidity, but most of us (like, 90% or more of us) will rarely if ever "wake up and have SP," so looking for it does not make much sense. Also, you can have still SP after your REM period has ended (indeed, I'm pretty sure that that is basically what actual SP is, BTW: the continuing of Rem Atonia after your mind has left REM and woken up), so even if you find yourself in SP upon waking, you might not be in REM.

Again: Enjoy your dream in a real Here & Now sort of way, try not to concern yourself with what might happen next, and you might in time find your LD's lasting longer, surviving brief fades & wake-ups, and generally much more fun.

Oh I am not worried SP. I just thought that when you wake up in SP, then you most likely woke up during your REM.

I definitely don't think about REM too much while trying to lucid or prolong it, since dreams outside of REM are know to exist and the total of 90 min limit makes no sense most nights. The question for me is, is the fading of a dream inevitable?

Sageous, so basically you are saying that the inability to stabilize or reenter a lucid dream boils down to the lack of experience? This certainly gives me motivation, since experience is something that can be gained, but if the cause is a biological limitation (doesn't matter how we call it, let's say a mechanism more complex than simply REM cycles) than nothing can be done about it.

Originally Posted by Spock

The question for me is, is the fading of a dream inevitable?

Just as every night's sleep comes to an end, so too must dreams. So sure, the fading is inevitable... but that doesn't mean you need to be concerned about it! Besides, the end of one dream might only indicate the beginning of another... with perhaps no more than a few quiet moments of NREM or a brief wakeup in between.

So basically you are saying that the inability to stabilize or reenter a lucid dream boils down to the lack of experience?

Yes, I guess I am. Everything about LD'ing is flexible and open to development. With practice, you will learn to stabilize, prolong, and chain your LD's through DEILD without regard for or worry about things like when your REM period is ending. Though there may be limits, there is no sense going about your LD practice looking for those limits.

Originally Posted by Sageous

So sure, the fading is inevitable... Though there may be limits, there is no sense going about your LD practice looking for those limits.

Thanks for the reply! By inevitable, I meant of course within the "normal" dream duration, so 5 hours or even one is definitely more than enough - I think the two longest lucid sequences I ever had, even back when I was relatively good at it, were about 40 minutes long and I can count all the lucids longer than 10 or 15 minutes on one hand (excluding fake memories, jump cuts, and so on). So I'm glad that it's not impossible to prolong these too

Originally Posted by Sageous

Again: Enjoy your dream in a real Here & Now sort of way, try not to concern yourself with what might happen next, and you might in time find your LD's lasting longer, surviving brief fades & wake-ups, and generally much more fun.

+1 to everything Sageous wrote.

My take on it is practical, along the way of 's "Again" above: never assume that a dream fading means dreaming is over. In my experience, a great deal of the time it does not mean it's over, it's just a transition/rest/reboot period for your dreaming mind. So rather, assume that you're continuing to dream, and very often you will experience a return to dreaming right away.

Sageous also said before something like "resist taking the usual route back to your waking body," this can also help prolong dreams.