Sleeping like an anvil

[paragon]

Dear Oprah, About a month ago I seemed to be doing well - I got my REM dreamer and had a few short LDs in the space of a week and I figured I was on the right road. Initially I set my REM dreamer to the dimmest, shortest flashes and it would either clearly appear in my dreams or would sometimes wake me up and allow me to immediately WILD. After that week however, I have been sleeping more deeply that I can ever remember having slept before. I now I have to set the mask to the highest brightness, flashing for about 30 seconds, and even then I usually don't notice it. If I use the beeps though, I always wake up. I haven't been remembering many dreams and the mask is reporting less REM sleep than usual. I didn't bother posting this until now because I can't pinpoint any change in circumstances that would have caused this, so an explanation for it is unlikely. Now I'm starting to get frustrated though. Any thoughts?

[Hukif]

I wonder if the body can interpret the lights as a treat and therefore make you get a deeper sleep so you won't get hurt, if it can, then that <.<

[paragon]

"Interpret them as a treat" I take it that was a typo and you meant threat... You'd think if that was the case, I'd wake up immediately rather than go into deeper sleep.

[Hukif]

Silly typos... Also, why wake up? The only thing the light does is damage sleep, so it may become deeper to prevent that damage, because waking up would be the same as letting the light work lol But that is only my logic...

[spaceexplorer]

Dear Oprah, About a month ago I seemed to be doing well - I got my REM dreamer and had a few short LDs in the space of a week and I figured I was on the right road. Initially I set my REM dreamer to the dimmest, shortest flashes and it would either clearly appear in my dreams or would sometimes wake me up and allow me to immediately WILD. After that week however, I have been sleeping more deeply that I can ever remember having slept before. I now I have to set the mask to the highest brightness, flashing for about 30 seconds, and even then I usually don't notice it. If I use the beeps though, I always wake up. I haven't been remembering many dreams and the mask is reporting less REM sleep than usual. I didn't bother posting this until now because I can't pinpoint any change in circumstances that would have caused this, so an explanation for it is unlikely. Now I'm starting to get frustrated though. Any thoughts? I had the very same issue with the Nova Dreamer. I think as with most things in life, the body adjusts. For example I live near a train station, when i first moved here, i was very aware of the noise, and it would constantly disturb my sleep. Now both waking and sleeping, my mind has learnt to block it out, to regard the information as "irrelevant." How do we compensate for this kind of thing? You need to keep changing your approach. Maybe save the Nova dreamer/REM dreamer for weekends only. Use other techniques during the week. So you've established the device works for you. Now you just need to not become desensitised to it. So now, find 2 or 3 other techniques that work for you, and rotate them. Use them long enough for them to be effective, then move on to the next. Also I think it's pretty important to have nights off, where you just sleep normally. Keep everything balanced. I've always favoured the one night on, one night off approach (such as in the CAT method), or saving my practices to the weekend. Hope thats of some kind of help.

[paragon]

Actually you're probably right spaceexplorer, I think that would be a big part of it. I live near a train station too and they don't bother me at all now either, except when they toot their horns late at night or early morning... I mean come on, have a bit of respect for the dead! BASTARDS! What I might do is set the Dream Alarm, which will definitely wake me up, then try to lie still and go into an immediate wild. That is if I don't have to scrape myself off the ceiling first. I do still believe I've been sleeping more deeply for some reason, and the mask's reporting of less REM is still a puzzle.

[Shift]

Hey, even if you're waking up as soon as you enter REM... dude, perfect DEILD time.

[paragon]

Yeah, I just hope I can configure the thing to wake me up once and then go away. If it woke me up during a lucid, I can see myself attacking it with a jackhammer.