Thread: Surpressing REM =vivid dreams later in the night?

Hi everyone,

I haven't been on alot because really, I've been having lots of life issues, and stuff unfortunately, to attend to. I would really love to put all my effort into LD'ing, unfortunately, that can't be done.

Tell me, I recently became intrigued by the REM rebound effect, which can be initiated by various techniques. I usually have 1 or 2 vivid dreams every so often through a week, and the rest are sort of meh...Well, it is these few incredibly vivid dreams, in which I carried all 5 senses that inspired me to try and induce vividity, (and of course lucidity).

I tried- Staying up all night, + one more day and part of another night, in the hopes that REM in subsequent nights would be more active

I tried a Melatonin and B6 Combination

-Both of these nights gave me inconclusive results. I had a few vivid dreams, but not "epic" dreams like some have described...

As a matter of fact I had the MOST vivid dream of my life when I took nothing.

I am wondering, will sleep medication, used for that purpose, surpress REM sleep earlier in the night to spike it later?

If so, I have to do some experimenting with the sleep meds I've been prescribed.

Thanks for your imput everyone, here's to vivid, lucid dreams for you all

All sleep medications are not the same, and some work on different neurotransmitters systems or different subunits of the same neurotransmitter receptor.

List the ones you're interested in (the generic name, not brand name). All you have to do is do a search on PubMed along with "REM" or "Sleep Architecture" to see if the drug affects these things.

Pretty sure sleep medications just make you tired and keep you asleep for longer, other than that the resulst would vary depending on what the sleep medication was.

Xanax, Adivan, and it may be worth mentioning i"m on Zoloft

Xanex is a crazy substance I do not like I hate it with a passion although it wasn't mine to use in the first place still I hate it.

Anyways that stuff makes you really tired and makes your body feel like it's pulsating right? That could confuse whether or not you are actually getting close to a dream or not if you are WILD'ing. Adivan I am not familiar with. And Zoloft I hav eonly seen on commercials. May cause drowsiness or whatever it says. So the two I listed will make you tired most likely.

You would probably fall asleep faster although I am not sure what your awareness level would be at so it might be bad for Lucid Dreaming if that is what you are shooting for.

BTW, those are the brand names. Xanax & Ativan (not Adivan) are benzodiazepines that are primarily used for reducing anxiety, and have very strong addiction potential. You should be rely careful about using those so you don't build tolerance or become too dependent.

The benzos tend to increase stage 2 sleep while decreasing deep sleep (stage 3 and 4 ) and decreasing REM sleep. Therefore, benzos tend to REDUCE the time you spend dreaming each night. If you want to LD, I would lay off the stuff.

Melatonin does increase dreaming, but tolerance builds within a few days. The physiological dose is only 100-300mcg (MICROgrams, not mg, 1000mcg = 1mg), so don't take the 1-3mg pills that they come in, unless you want to build tolerance quickly.