Thread: Trouble getting to sleep...

Hello everyone! I have always had trouble getting to sleep at night, I think it is because I do a lot of thinking when I go to bed. When I try to stop thinking of things I just cant do it! Iam going to bed a whole lot earlier these nights because I want to lucid dream so bad! Is there any advice to get me to relax, I just dont know what to do

Tough one! Do you drink many cafenated drinks in the afternoon or evening? What to you do in the last two hours before going to bed?

You might want to think about getting up an hour or two earlier in the morning. At least for a week to see if you can force your body to change it's cycle a little.

I must admit I drink a lot of Diet Coke....and the last thing I usually before going to bed is being on the internet...

Yeah, I get that a lot too. Sometimes I just have one stupid song in my head that WON'T GO AWAY! And usually they aren't even good songs! Usually though for that I do this visualization thingy where I just close my eyes and imagine turning off the stereo which is playing the god dam song! It usually silences the song in my head and whenever I feel it coming back I close my eyes and picture blackness and silence. Just to give my head rest. It works for me anyway... but it'd probably help if you stopped drinking coke close to sleepy time and stopped going on the internet so late. lalala, anyhoot. Bubye! Joexxx[/u][/url]

That could be it, I'd try knocking off the diet coke and see what happens. And maybe surf boring internet sites

Thanks for that will try that tonight...its very hard to stay away from this site though

I have the same problem. Some times it happens after I been asleep for a few hours too. I wake up and I just start thinking about random stuff and can't fall back to sleep again. Normally when it happens I don't really feel all that tired either.

Which brings up one other thing you can do. If you normally take a lot of naps or something later in the day, you can try and skip them then you will sleep better at night.

Oh and one other thing. If you can't help thinking of stuff, try to image stuff in your head. To me it seems like you have a better chance of falling asleep doing that, than thinking of random things you did or going to do during the day.

Im going to get to sleep tonight for sure! Ive drank a bit of cider...STRONG white cider that is dirt cheap...I cant go wrong tonight! look....heres a few bananas....I love these guys!

Im starting to remember 2 dreams a night now, and another thing...Iam slightly relising that I am dreaming. But only the a little, I think I might be on my way to having a lucid dream soon

A lot of people seem to have problems with visualisation, and can't sleep when trying to do eg. a good MILD or VILD.

It might just take practice, or perhaps try a different lucid technique
If you're starting to notice you're dreaming while you're already in the dream - its dream-induced LD. If you're good at those, go with it

All the dream induced methods seem to revolve around reality checks
And based on the fact that you sort of know already that you're in a dream, you might just need to 'prove' it better to yourself, and try to think more clearly in your LD.
One way of doing that is to try have a particular goal you want to achieve in your LD - and be determined to do it. So every time you LD, try remember what your goal was and do it.

Works for me anyway!

Hey that sounds like a really good idea! I cant wait for bed time tonight! Thanks for that one!!

No problem
If you find you aren't noticing its a dream often enough, then you'll need to work on trying to make a habit of reality checks and general awareness of your thoughts and surroundings.

Thats what I'm trying at the moment - the awareness. Not easy to do it every minute of the day. Rewards are big though

You see this reality check thing....when do you do this, do you do it in your dreams? Or do you do it during the day so when it comes to the dream you will be able to do it easily?

Well.. there's different methods.
Some are suited to some people, others to other people.
Okay... here goes a long post *breath in*

Since you already have a fuzzy thought in your dreams about it maybe being a dream, you already have something right. You just need to figure out what did it, and make it work better.

Some dream-induced (as opposed to waking-induced) methods I know of, ranging from easiest to hardest (maybe you are already partially doing one of these)

1) Have 'dreamsigns'... things that you tend to dream about. Eg. I have a natural dreamsign for things attacking me.
What you do here is that if you see any of your dreamsigns in the waking world or dreams - whenever - then you check that its not a dream. eg. if you always dream of cats, whenever you see a cat, make it a habit to make sure you aren't dreaming.
This might be easiest if you keep a journal of your dreams and figure out what you dream of most.

2) One of them is to make a habit of it all the time (waking and dreaming). Thats harder than (1), and can take a little time for results. Some people have a nack for it. Basically it involves having some simple checks that you do all day ... not triggered by anything. Just doing it by nature. E.g. like people have an eye twitch problem - that natural.

3) This one is particularly hard. I'm trying it out at the moment, but will take a long time. This involves not just doing reality checks all the time, it involves being aware of everything you think and do. Kind of like thinking of yourself from another perspective. Imagine you are actually someone standing behind your body.. that can read your mind. That might give you an idea of what I'm talking about here.

Whats nice about this method is that you learn a lot about yourself - eg. how unaware we really are most of the time, and how we actually think. And its the key to a lot of 'abilities' that are described in training courses on all sorts of stuff.
The downside is that its quite hard to get this right all day every day

About the reality checks - the best ones for me so far are a combination of the following 4:
1) Think about how you got where you are, what you ate last, and if it all makes sense and is normal or usual.
2) Try doing something not normally possible. A good one is to block your nose and carry on breathing. Try believe its possible... or try not to think about it at all (breathing is a natural thing). If you can breathe.. well... you're dreaming.
3) Close one eye and look for your nose. If you can't see it - you're either abnormal or are dreaming
4) Look at your hands. Often something strange happens. At least for me. Careful though - it can be scary sometimes. One girl I taught to have her first LD looked at her hands and screamed. They were alien.

There might be more induction methods and reality checks I don't know of or haven't thought of. Theres piles of reality checks anyway. Some better than others - and everyone has their favourites.

Anyone have any more dream-induced methods, offhand ?
Oh, and thanks for reading all this bull

If there is one thing that always and I mean always happens to me when Im dreaming....people always hate me in my dreams. I guess that is one of my dream signs, I must try and be more aware that Im dreaming next time!

Interesting dreamsign.... just goes to show, everyone is different.
One reality check I have heard of is that people in your dreams have a different reaction when you ask them whether you're dreaming.
In waking world, they tell you that you're insane. In dream they tell you 'of course not... I promise.. you're not... etc'
Either that or they admit it

Problem with that reality check is that I would hate to do that every 30 minutes in the waking world. Someone will eventually lock me away for good.

I had problem with going to sleep. Especially on nights when I wanted to become lucid. I went to bed at 7, somehow managed to fall asleep, but next day I couldnt fall asleep for 5 hours...

It's torture....

So now I take melatonin and fall asleep very fast.

I sometimes have that problem too. The worst time one once that I kept trying to sleep but kept thinking about what you needed to do in order to fall asleep. I started breathing and and out and doing things I generally do, but I wouldn't fall asleep(I guess I didn't let my consciousness go, what is what I was really supposed to do). I stayed up until 5am until I finally fell asleep(I went to be like at 12 that day)...

Also Joe, I have that problem many times, where a song keeps on playing on my head. I can make it stop but it just keeps coming back...after much trying it just goes away for good(I generally substititute it for another and then this one fades itself away )

Originally posted by SD Rockman
Hello everyone! I have always had trouble getting to sleep at night, I think it is because I do a lot of thinking when I go to bed.

I had the same problem before.
But I have found a ritual who helps. That is to listen to audio books while I am in the bed and wait to fall asleep. That helps me to relax and fall asleep much faster than before