Thread: Lucid dream on naps

For starters, welcome to the forums.

So, you're getting lucid during naps because your brain is a little more awake during these times. A lot of people have success becoming lucid during naps. However, if you wish to have lucid dreams at night too, you want to:

1) Go to bed early, this always helps me. Even if I can sleep in, going to bed late does something that messes me up usually. Make sure you plan for enough sleep. At least 9 hours if you can.

2) Continue to record all dreams and fragments in your dream journal by your bedside (just remembering does not have the same effect as writing them down - it's all intention based, and writing things down builds your intention).

3) Practice WBTB (Wake Back To Bed). It's the most powerful technique out there, if you ask me. After sleeping about 5 hours, sometime around 3-4 in the morning, wake up. Stay awake for 1 hour. This time may vary, everyone is different, for me it's about an hour. For you, it may be less or more. Experiment with the timing. When you're ready, go back to bed. Your chances of lucidity are now much higher because your brain is a little more awake, and you're entering into sleep cycles that have longer REM periods as the morning progresses.

You can and should practice other techniques, too, such as reality checking, prospective memory building, visualizations / meditation, relaxation techniques for WILDing, etc., but the above strategies are a great starting point to build from.

Second question - increasing dream time when lucid -

So this is more of matter of experience and practice. It is all too common for new lucid dreamers to have very short dreams in the beginning. Usually, it's because of emotional instability. If you experience a spike of emotion while dreaming (especially fear), you will lose your dream. You will master this with time. Additionally, you want to practice stabilizing your dreams. To do this, as soon as you're lucid, look at your hands (or another dream object) until you can see every wrinkle (or detail). Say your name. Say out loud that you're dreaming - that you're lucid. Crawl around instead of walk. Focus on your senses. Lick the walls. Touch things. All of these actions will help to stabilize the dream. Also, you can even ask the dream itself for increased clarity or stability. I've even asked the dream for a "Time extension please!" before. Get creative, you'd be surprised what may happen if your expectations are in alignment with what you want.

Good luck!

Hi, MoonageDaydream!

Thanks for your answer and the advices

I will for sure continue to record my dreams and I also started to practice systematically the WBTB thechnique.

The last days I stayed awake for 1 hour at 3am, but then I took a long time to sleep again and had just non-lucid dreams.

I'm not frustrated with this, I just keep trying with little modifications.

So, do I need to reduce my time awake?

Originally Posted by tacadevinho

Hi, MoonageDaydream!

Thanks for your answer and the advices

I will for sure continue to record my dreams and I also started to practice systematically the WBTB thechnique.

The last days I stayed awake for 1 hour at 3am, but then I took a long time to sleep again and had just non-lucid dreams.

I'm not frustrated with this, I just keep trying with little modifications.

So, do I need to reduce my time awake?

Not necessarily. Play around with it, but for me, I can say, the longer the better. 2-3 hours is great for me, but that's definitely hard to do on a work schedule. Good luck

It took me 1.5 months to have my first lucid dream.
That was with constant reality checks, and daily all day awareness
Stay the course you will eventually have one and you will love it

Have you tried the MILD technique? The combination of this, reality checks and WBTB should improve your chances.

Though longer WBTBs can have good results sometimes all you need is 5-10 minutes. If you’re like me and struggle to get back to sleep quickly after waking up then you may benefit from a shorter wake up (Micro-WBTB).

As others have said, get at least 7-8 hours sleep if you can and attempt your WBTB in the last 2-3 hours of sleep for the best results.

Okay, got it.
Thanks!

Originally Posted by 3so

It took me 1.5 months to have my first lucid dream.
That was with constant reality checks, and daily all day awareness
Stay the course you will eventually have one and you will love it

The last weeks I started to do constant reality checks during my day and I'm understand the concept of all day awareness yet.
Staying in the course 😉
I'll post here when I succeed!

Originally Posted by Tiktaalik

Have you tried the MILD technique? The combination of this, reality checks and WBTB should improve your chances.

Though longer WBTBs can have good results sometimes all you need is 5-10 minutes. If you’re like me and struggle to get back to sleep quickly after waking up then you may benefit from a shorter wake up (Micro-WBTB).

As others have said, get at least 7-8 hours sleep if you can and attempt your WBTB in the last 2-3 hours of sleep for the best results.

Alright! I'll do some longer WBTB to test some more weeks and get the 7-8 hours of sleep consistently. If I continue to struggle to get back to sleep, I'll do the micro-WBTB.

I read about the MILD., but not tried yet, I'll do!

Thanks for the answer!

Hi, again!

So, I realized when reading my dream journal that I'm always talking with somebody on my dreams, so I started to do RC everytime I'm with someone. I was very happy to see I could create this trigger with people so fast in my mind and waiting for the best on my dreams, but nothing happened
I still dreaming talking with people, but I never do a RC while dreaming. It's okay, I will continue with the RC. But I'm sad with this.

I started the WBTB everyday. I go to bed at 10pm and wake at 3am. As I said above, if I stay a long time awake, I couldn't sleep later. So I'm staying 30 minutes, go back to bed. But no sucess for the last two weeks.
Yesterday I started to try WILD when I go back to bed, but this last two nights I just fall asleep haha. Still trying tho.

Today I take a nap after lunch and then I was poped into a dream: I was inside my father's car with my cellphone on my hand, I just felt I was dreaming and said "I'm dreaming. I want my dream stabilized. I want stabilize" but my vision just got confused and I woke up again. Could not try again because of the time to work haha.

That's it. Sometimes I wake up a little sad remebering my dreams and asking myself how I couldn't do a RC at the time, but then I just ignore this feelling and continue the process. When I get a little LD like this on my nap I fell happy, but desiring more.

Hope I get better with the time, guys!

I think it's a good sign that you managed to get into some lucidity with your nap. Honestly, reality checks can be valuable, but I personally find that most of the times I've been lucid had less to do with the reality checks. The checks were usually good for me to ground myself in my lucidity more than to make me aware in the first place. Like with your nap lucid, often it's just been a case of having a short moment where I simply feel or know that I am dreaming.

If your sleep allows for it then by all means keep trying with the WBTB and even WILD, as both can be very effective even on their own when you get them to work. Maybe the main advice I can think of giving in that area is to try and not set many expectations when you do try them, because sometimes that expectation can work against you.

Speaking from my own experience, the first few months can sometimes be a little frustrating, especially if you do get some success a few times and then feel like lucidity is not coming your way. To me, it sounds like you're doing well enough for someone new to all this, so I hope that's some reassurance that your efforts are worthwhile.

Originally Posted by tacadevinho

Today I take a nap after lunch and then I was poped into a dream: I was inside my father's car with my cellphone on my hand, I just felt I was dreaming and said "I'm dreaming. I want my dream stabilized. I want stabilize" but my vision just got confused and I woke up again. Could not try again because of the time to work haha.

The reason you were able to achieve lucidity during the nap is because your brain was more awake. Because of this, and because 30 minutes does not seem to get you lucid in a WBTB, I would try longer WBTBs. Your brain may just need more awakening. Yes, you will have trouble going back to sleep at first. But, I do believe you can create a schedule that your body will adjust to in time. That said, I recommend doing longer WBTBs on the weekend when you don't have work in the morning, and can sleep in.

Congrats on the lucid. Don't forget, with stabilizing, sensory input is everything. Your first thought should be to focus on one of your senses. Sight is easy, just look at your hands. Then, you can stabilize further with words.

--

I think RCs are useful, however, I believe in practicing prospective memory tasks combined with RCs. So, rather than keeping the 1 rc and doing it everything you interact with people, do somethnig that causes you to strain to remember the rc trigger. This effort will build essential memory skills needed for becoming lucid. Memory is so underrated in lucid dreaming, if you ask me!

Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

I think it's a good sign that you managed to get into some lucidity with your nap. Honestly, reality checks can be valuable, but I personally find that most of the times I've been lucid had less to do with the reality checks. The checks were usually good for me to ground myself in my lucidity more than to make me aware in the first place. Like with your nap lucid, often it's just been a case of having a short moment where I simply feel or know that I am dreaming.

If your sleep allows for it then by all means keep trying with the WBTB and even WILD, as both can be very effective even on their own when you get them to work. Maybe the main advice I can think of giving in that area is to try and not set many expectations when you do try them, because sometimes that expectation can work against you.

Speaking from my own experience, the first few months can sometimes be a little frustrating, especially if you do get some success a few times and then feel like lucidity is not coming your way. To me, it sounds like you're doing well enough for someone new to all this, so I hope that's some reassurance that your efforts are worthwhile.

Yeah, always when I get a nap lucid it's by a feeling that I'm dreaming and reading my DJ I could see I never do a reality check on my dreams.

Ok, I'll keep trying. Yeah, I'm just enjoying the memory of my dreams and trying to not be frustrated at the morning haha!

Thanks for the advice!

Originally Posted by MoonageDaydream

The reason you were able to achieve lucidity during the nap is because your brain was more awake. Because of this, and because 30 minutes does not seem to get you lucid in a WBTB, I would try longer WBTBs. Your brain may just need more awakening. Yes, you will have trouble going back to sleep at first. But, I do believe you can create a schedule that your body will adjust to in time. That said, I recommend doing longer WBTBs on the weekend when you don't have work in the morning, and can sleep in.

Congrats on the lucid. Don't forget, with stabilizing, sensory input is everything. Your first thought should be to focus on one of your senses. Sight is easy, just look at your hands. Then, you can stabilize further with words.

--

I think RCs are useful, however, I believe in practicing prospective memory tasks combined with RCs. So, rather than keeping the 1 rc and doing it everything you interact with people, do somethnig that causes you to strain to remember the rc trigger. This effort will build essential memory skills needed for becoming lucid. Memory is so underrated in lucid dreaming, if you ask me!

Hummm, it's does make sense... I'll try longer WBTB this weekend for sure.

Okay, when I get the next LD I'll try just to see on my around, but it's being ever a few seconds until I wake up.

Oh, I don't do RC just when talking with somebody. I'm doing a lot of rc along the day in various situations, I think I'm going well with this. I mentioned the talking with people trigger, because this was a situation that I was always forgetting to do RC and is a frequent situation in my dreams. I was so confident that, once I create the trigger with people, I would do RC on my dream. But this don't happened yet. Maybe it will get a time until this is "absorbed" by my unconscious?

Do you have any other tips about prospective memory?

I almost forget to tell you people!

The night before this I dreamed about a rainbow with a weird form. It has a stairs form and then your angles were getting smaller until a point the rainbow was getting around itself. Like a shoelace.
I saw that I thinked that was really weird and I was amazed. I told my friend "Hey, see that crazy rainbow!!! It's so weird!!!".
But, unfortunately I didn't do a RC haha.

Think about it, am I starting to have more awareness on my dreams? Beginning to question my reality on dreams?

Nice! That is a good beginning.

What you can do next, especially right after waking up from a dream like that, is to imagine the outcome that you wanted; that you did do a reality check, realized the rainbow was too weird to be real, and then became lucid and levitated and floated toward it to explore it!
While visualizing the outcome, it is also important to try and feel what it will feel like, e.g.: the sensation of flying in your stomach and the feeling of the wind in your hair and against your skin.

Originally Posted by IAmCoder

Nice! That is a good beginning.

What you can do next, especially right after waking up from a dream like that, is to imagine the outcome that you wanted; that you did do a reality check, realized the rainbow was too weird to be real, and then became lucid and levitated and floated toward it to explore it!
While visualizing the outcome, it is also important to try and feel what it will feel like, e.g.: the sensation of flying in your stomach and the feeling of the wind in your hair and against your skin.

Alright! I'll practice that too.
Thanks for your advice!

Originally Posted by IAmCoder

Nice! That is a good beginning.

What you can do next, especially right after waking up from a dream like that, is to imagine the outcome that you wanted; that you did do a reality check, realized the rainbow was too weird to be real, and then became lucid and levitated and floated toward it to explore it!
While visualizing the outcome, it is also important to try and feel what it will feel like, e.g.: the sensation of flying in your stomach and the feeling of the wind in your hair and against your skin.

Quoting this for emphasis. This is a strategy given in the book Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self by Robert Waggoner. Definitely a strong strategy to use!! You can expand upon this by writing up a "fake" dream journal entry where you pretend you got lucid, and describe what you saw and did.

Also definitely agree with the importance of FEELING. To expand, when you RC, try to "feel" that sense of confusion you would have when becoming lucid. Feel that you honestly as not sure it's real life or a dream. Feel that amazement, awe, and surprise with every RC.

Originally Posted by MoonageDaydream

1) Go to bed early, this always helps me. Even if I can sleep in, going to bed late does something that messes me up usually. Make sure you plan for enough sleep. At least 9 hours if you can.

Everyone's different, but boy this is true for me! There's something magical about midnight -- go to bed before midnight, and I'll usually have a lot more recalled dreams than when I go to bed after midnight. I've seen this tendency again and again over the years. One of the seemingly simplest and most effective practices to recalling more dreams, and having more vivid and lucid dreams, is having a regular sleep schedule, yet to this day (many years after starting my LD practice, although I haven't been actively practicing the last several years), implementing this still eludes me!

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Everyone's different, but boy this is true for me! There's something magical about midnight -- go to bed before midnight, and I'll usually have a lot more recalled dreams than when I go to bed after midnight. I've seen this tendency again and again over the years. One of the seemingly simplest and most effective practices to recalling more dreams, and having more vivid and lucid dreams, is having a regular sleep schedule, yet to this day (many years after starting my LD practice, although I haven't been actively practicing the last several years), implementing this still eludes me!

I think it might have to do with the circadian rhythm hardwired in most of us. Something biological is at play here. Just my thoughts.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Everyone's different, but boy this is true for me! There's something magical about midnight -- go to bed before midnight, and I'll usually have a lot more recalled dreams than when I go to bed after midnight. I've seen this tendency again and again over the years. One of the seemingly simplest and most effective practices to recalling more dreams, and having more vivid and lucid dreams, is having a regular sleep schedule, yet to this day (many years after starting my LD practice, although I haven't been actively practicing the last several years), implementing this still eludes me!

I could feel the difference on sleeping before midnight. It really helped me to dream more!