Hypnagogia and the REM Cycle

I have observed in my training that a period of strong hypnagogia at the beginning of a REM cycle can bring about good REM lucidity much quicker.

As an older guy who gets up at 4:00 AM every day, I need my sleep. That means that I do not attempt to wake myself with an alarm for WBTB. Instead I rely on my natural REM cycle. That also means that most times I wake up from a dream at the end of a 90 minute REM cycle. During my first waking I go through SSILD cycles and go right back to sleep. That often leads to lucidity at the end of the 90 minute REM period after which I always wake up naturally again.

But that usually leaves me with less than an hour before I need to get up and at the front end of the 90 minute REM cycle. I have found, though, that if I can get into deep hypnagogia within 15 or 20 minutes after a brief WBTB and then just roll over and go to sleep, I still get my best lucidity just before waking up for the final time. That period of brief but strong lucidity after hypnagogia always leaves me feeling refreshed and well rested and ready to start my day.

Of course, on weekends when I can have a longer WBTB and then a nice long morning lay-in...things get really interesting. :)

Thoughts on all that?

Hypnagogia and lucidity don't factor into feeling refreshed, well rested and ready to start the day. What does is waking up during REM sleep (or stage 1 Non-Rem sleep) and getting enough slow-wave sleep (also known as stage 3 Non-REM sleep or deep Non-REM sleep.) Slow-wave sleep is when our body does its healing/maintenance work that makes us feel refreshed and well rested. When we wake up during slow-wave sleep, we aren't ready to start the day because we are transitioning from a state where our mind is much less active than when we're awake. During the first couple of sleep cycles, there tends to be more slow-wave sleep than REM sleep and after that, there tends to be more REM sleep than slow-wave sleep.

I'm not sure whether or not the hypnagogia factors into becoming lucid. It could aid lucidity by helping keep concepts related to dreaming in short-term memory as the dream starts, but then again the mind could wander to unrelated concepts as well.

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Originally Posted by dolphin

Hypnagogia and lucidity don't factor into feeling refreshed, well rested and ready to start the day. What does is waking up during REM sleep (or stage 1 Non-Rem sleep) and getting enough slow-wave sleep (also known as stage 3 Non-REM sleep or deep Non-REM sleep.)

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Thanks for this response, dolphin. Your insights will help me to fine tune my developing program. I continue to inch closer to my goal of making dream lucidity an integral and sustainable part of my life.

Your comments make perfect sense to me after an honest appraisal of my sleep/lucidity patterns. I feel most renewed and refreshed after stong lucidity. I get my strongest lucidity after a period of good hypnagogia. And I get my deepest hypnagogia when I have had at least four hours of good sleep (5 or 6 is even better). Go figure, right? :)

I still wondered, though, why I feel so much more invigorated in mornings after good lucidity, even when compared to nights when I had excellent sleep but no lucidity. Perhaps that can be chalked up to the effects of lucid euphoria. :nodyes:

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I'm not sure whether or not the hypnagogia factors into becoming lucid. It could aid lucidity by helping keep concepts related to dreaming in short-term memory as the dream starts, but then again the mind could wander to unrelated concepts as well.

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I really think that hypnagogia helps to bring on lucidity even in a DILD scenario. At least that has been my experience, even as I look back. Perhaps that period of strong hypnagogia is activating the prefrontal cortex and kind of jump starting the process so that when i fall asleep, my brain is in dream mode already. Early and vivid dreaming like that increases the chance that I'll get lucid.

The more I understand....the more I ponder.