Circadian Break Technique?

Hello guise. Well let's get to the point.

The circadian rhythm is the natural rhythm the body becomes used to, with the duration of an exact day. It is controlled by negative feedback systems of hormones in your pineal gland. That rhythm is what makes you feel sleepy or wake up every day. Depending on how still your routine has been during the last months, your adherence to your circadian rhythm may be greater or smaller.

For the last few months, my circadian rhythm had been very strong; meaning, it was nearly impossible to sleep or wake up in a time other than that which I was used to. I was sleeping from 8am-6pm. Due to school starting, however, I had to change that schedule, and so I decided to break my daily rhythm completely, and let myself adapt to the new one from zero.

The side effect: lucid dreams. I don't know if breaking my sleep routine made my sleep less deep, or if it made me more conscious, or if it made my REM sleep last longer; but I had lucid dreams on 3 consecutive nights after breaking my circadian rhythm, without any other technique at all. Worth noting is that I had been without any lucid dream for more than 2 months.

The other side effect was considerably lighter sleep. I'd wake up after each sleep cycle, would be able to sleep or get up at any time of the day, and my morning mood got much better.

The bad effect is that you completely lose notion of passed time. You don't know how long you have been awake nor sleeping for. You lose that "feeling" that it's morning or night. Of course we have watches for that, but it might be bad depending on your profession or activity.

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I want people to try this. What you have to do is simply break the neurohormonal cycle which controls your daily routine, in a way that forces your body to go through re-adaptation.

The right way to break your circadian cycle varies a lot from person to person. The way that worked for me was:
Go to sleep at a time much later than that you're used to. You need to be awake for so long that you start having hypnagogic hallucinations as soon as you close your eyes. This is the time you should go to sleep. Yet, don't let yourself rebound your sleep: set an alarm to wake yourself up about 3-4 hours later. By then, your neurological rhythm should already be broken and your body trying to re-adapt. Adopt a sleep routine different from your previous one (doesn't need to be extremely different, just different enough to call it different), and tell me your results.

I expect this to work best when combined with MILD (which is by far the best LD technique so far imo); but do as you find appropriate.

I wish people were trying this... This is a very good idea.

Yep, this is interesting. If I wasn't in the middle of so much other shit, I would try this.

This is basically the CAT (cycle adjustment technique) and WILD-CAT technique.

There's a link to the tutorial somewhere, but it's late here and I don't have time to find it. I'm sure someone else will be helpful enough to do so :D


ps. the tutorial only shows one of the many CAT sleep scheduals, but basically the CAT method can be any adjustment of sleep cycle and circadian rhythm that promotes lucidity. What you've described above fits that methods philosophy perfectly.

Ill look into it kromoh for when you get back. I'm always up for new ideas.