Thread: Questions...

Why is it suggested to wake up in the middle of the night (early morning), walk around for an hour and then go back to sleep to have a better chance for LDs? The REM stage is at the end of the cycle. Wouldn't it be easier just to continue to sleep throughout the night so you have more time for the beginning stages to go through 'til you get to the REM stage? Because, once you're awake and fall back asleep, you have to wait for those beginning stages all over again. I don't get it. Anyone want to explain?

When keeping a dream journal, are you supposed to read it as well as write in it? Should you read over the dreams you had months ago a couple times a week? Or is the idea just to write in it to remember?

The time period for everyone is different (2 seconds-60 minutes), but if you wake up right before a REM cycle, it gives your logic centre time to wake up, making dreams more vivid, memorable, and lucid. As for dream journalling, yes, you need to read your dreams to find dreamsigns (recurring things, people, or themes) which are handy for becoming lucid.

REM occurs early on in the night as well, but it doesn't last as long. The later into the night, the longer the REM period lasts. The beginning stages are shorter or sometimes non-existent during the later phases of sleep. Remember, you can dream and lucid dream outside of the REM period. They just usually aren't as vivd/memorable/last as long.

Most people wake in the night to try and WILD/FILD/DEILD/whatnot. After several hours of sleep it is much easier to enter directly in REM. This is the main reason people do WBTB. The reason you stay awake for 1 hour (or whatever increment of time someone uses) during this, is so you aren't too tired and fall asleep normally.

Another reason some wake is to get a fresh start. Let me explain. After waking up in the night, it gives you another chance at thinking about LDing which gets LDing on your mind. Alot of times, simply thinking about LDing before bed can cause you to become lucid.

I also wake in the night for better recall. Recall is at its strongest point just after the dream. I try to set my alarm for the end of an REM cycle so I can remember as much as possible.

Hope this helped. Good Luck!

Thank you both for the explanations! I set my alarm clock last night for 3am. Woke up for a few minutes, went back to bed and had a bunch of dreams which I remembered in the morning. Wrote them all down in my d journal

Glad to help

Originally Posted by Kyla

Thank you both for the explanations! I set my alarm clock last night for 3am. Woke up for a few minutes, went back to bed and had a bunch of dreams which I remembered in the morning. Wrote them all down in my d journal

Your very welcome. Congratulations on your recall, btw!

It doesn't seem like anyone explained this, when WBTbing you don't need to wait for the other sleep stages to come on, you will go directly into rem.

Yes, definitely read as well as write in your dream journal. You should read some of it right before bed, this helps you remember even more dreams. You can read as much or as little as you want, if you want to read about dreams from months ago but I normally just read dreams from the past couple days.