Another Light Cue test...Again...:p

What I'm doing is kinda....common by now but I thought I'd post it anyways so here goes...

Test Objective :

To trigger lucidity using an external light cue or at least auto-suggest a lucid dream as a result of using the light.


How It's Done :

Entire lucid dream session starts at 7am. There will be a main timer to activate the setup at 7am. The setup will comprise a resettable timer that will delay the light cue for 25min after it is activated by the main timer at 7am. Reason for the 25min delay is for me to have time to fall back to sleep when I wake up. A reset switch held in the hand will cause the resettable timer to start back from 0 so that means I can fall back to sleep without worrying about the 25min by resetting it as and when until I fall asleep. Then when I do fall asleep the light cue itself will come on when activated by the resettable timer. The light cue itself will come on for 3 times in a row with ON duration of 2s and OFF duration of 4s after which it will cease for 10 min and then another 3 times. This 10min cycle goes on indefinitely until the reset switch is activated to reset the resettable timer to off the light cue cycle and count from 0 to 25min again.


Light Cue Used :

One 300w halogen floodlight directed at the ceiling to diffuse and direct an even spread of light to the eyes so the light will not loose intensity even when I'm sleeping on my side. Controlling light intensity is via dimmer.

I've done all of the above so now it's a matter of.."DOES IT WORK?"....

IMJ

Ok...first let me level off. I've started testing this light a day before posting this so this morning is the 2nd attempt.

In the first test, I slept past 7am and had a dream but no sign of the light. Then somewhere during later sleep I think I was in light sleep I remember the light going off but I wasn't dreaming so I did wake up for real and went back to sleep and slept all the way till 9am with shorter dreams but whenever I woke up from those dreams I found that the resettable timer hadn't gone off yet. I suspect the time delay may be too long but I will test again.

In the second test, I slept past 7am but again no sign of the light in the dream plus the light cue went off after I woke up from the dream. I wasn't able to fall back to sleep after that and it was 7:45am.


Possible causes:

Timing too far apart, Light is too bright to cause inability to fall back to sleep because it was raining this morning and the room is darker than the first test.


Adjustment:

Will reduce delay time from 25min to 15 min and interval between cues to 5min. Brightness will be maintained for now but I will find a way to automatically compensate for rainy weather versus light intensity.

IMJ

Ok...Third attempt. The main timer was set at 7.15am to activate the setup so the light cue went off at 7.30am but that was only just after I woke up from a dream..:(. The room is still darker than the first test because it was going to rain AGAIN.


Adjustment:

I have reduced the brightness since it is prevalent weather to prevent waking up during light sleep and being too bright also affects dream recall if it's after a dream.

IMJ

Fourth attempt....Nothing much to say about this one. The dream was not vivid because I skipped taking the B complex supplement the day before so I don't remember much of what happened in the dream but when I awakened from it the light cue cycle was on so whether i saw it in the dream or not...I really don't know. I want to do more tests including naps but people are doing drilling works below my flat..:(.

IMJ

Fifth attempt...The light cue got into the dream but I woken up from it because of the consecutive cues. The cue went off during when I was fixing a light bulb and the bulb lighted up brightly in the dream and then the next 2 consecutive cues woke me up...:(. Subsequent dreams after that the resettable timer did not activate the cue because the time between falling asleep and dreaming became shorter and shorter less than the 15min I allowed for.


Adjustment:

Reduce delay time to activate cue cycle to 10min. Remove the three consecutive cues and allow just one 2s flash of light every 5 min interval.

IMJ

Sixth attempt....Nothing....no dream recall at all...:( :(. Slept through till 8am.


Causes:

I skipped the morning dose of B complex supplement on purpose and only took before sleep to test the effects of it.

IMJ

Seventh and Eighth attempt....I had adjusted the delay of the resettable timer to 10min and the interval between the light cue to 2.5 min. The 10min delay is still too long so it did not activate the cue during dreaming.

Adjustment:

Reduce the delay from 10min to 5min.

IMJ

Ninth attempt....two light cues got into the dream. The first one was in the form of lights at a construction site in the dream and it was part of lights mounted on a tall crane. I looked at my watch only once so it wasn't a real check and did not become lucid. The second cue shortly after was in the form of my room light. Someone came into my room while I was lying down and turned the light on...almost became lucid because I remembered I modified the room light in reality and in the dream it was still the old light but I din't become lucid.


Possible causes:

Not enough training with noticing light cue.

IMJ

Still testing just that there's some screw up with the timing...will be back soon..:).

IMJ

Ok..here's what happened. After proving myself that the light cue works...my mind became like a monkey..:(. It got anxiety and it did not go away and stayed even during waking time because of the idea that the light cue will go off. So I guess for now I can say is..it works BUT....it creates lots and lots of anxiety as a side effect.

IMJ

Lucidity's caused more by awareness than cues. If the cue's flashing but you aren't aware enough, it won't do anything. That's why it's better to just work on awareness and RCing than use cues.

...Although, I'm not saying it's not useful for some people. :3

Hi..Thanks..:) You are right about awareness using the cue also has to rely on that for it to work but now even using it is a problem.

IMJ

No problem. Good luck getting results!

Sorry guys...I have to pull the plug on this one..:(. I will post a new topic about using lights to incubate a lucid dream by autosuggestion instead since lights and lightbulbs are my other passion ..:). But I will have to wait and see if my dream recall stabilizes or not, it's been 'damaged' by using the light cue I think.

IMJ

Good luck, keep us posted.

Hi guys....I think I found something similar to the anxiety this light cue causes......have alook at the youtube link...it's kinda creepy what I'm doing to have LDs...:S.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFFslAjUyj4

IMJ

Hi again....I just bought the circuit to gradually turn on a light but....it runs on DC so I'll have to rewire the rig to run a DC lightbulb...:(. But stay tuned I think it may work this time since there is no reason to fear a light that slowly comes on...:D.

IMJ

Hi imj, have you thought about using heat instead of light cues? I've been trying to devise and EILD device that applies increasing heat. The idea being that, in a non-lucid, you will start to detect heat and then as the heat increases you have more chances of realising you're dreaming. Also, a big advantage would be that you don't have to have anything on your face.

I have thought of that but because I live in a tropical climate heat can make the ambient temperature hard to sleep back..:(. Unless I can device a way to localize the heat to maybe the leg?... Our ambient temperature can go up to 32 degrees celcius on hot months but I have seen the movie The Science Of Sleep (fiction) in which the dreamer "Stephan" if spelled correctly used an ice freezer at his feet to induce a dream about ice skiing and then used a prerecorded music track when he was sleeping that was mechanically activated by his moving eyelids while he was dreaming. So....it could be anything that arouses the senses but problem is only during REM. If I were rich enough I'd rig up air-conditioning instead of the light..LOL..It'd be the opposite of your heat idea..:):). Really cold = Reality check. Anyways..I have finished the light cue wiring..Finally, so now leaves the usual stuff like timers, reset switch etc...:P.

IMJ

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bobblehat

I've been trying to devise and EILD device that applies increasing heat.

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EILD as in Exit Initiated Lucid Dream? Temperature sensing during dreams is also sensitive like light and also sensations like a full bladder or having to poo that usually appears as default in the dream which is looking for the toilet....could you eleborate more on your R&D?

IMJ

Hi again....there has been some problems with getting DC power from AC...tried using a battery but charging takes too long..:P. ANyways I decided I was up to it to try with the old light and I did. It entered my morning dream for 2 days in a row..:). The first day was not set bright enough so I vagely saw it but definatly influenced the dream because the dream was about the device I was using in some other place and I ended up switching the lift door instead and someone told me I was doing that in the dream and to stop..:S. The next day it entered as default. In this dream I bought a new state of the art floodlight and controller to yes..have lucid dreams. I toyed with the new device and it went off first at a distance mounted on the wall of my room and then a while later I went too near the floodlight and it went off in my face....quite painfully bright. Thrid time in the same dream was when I accidentally got the controlling unit wet and the battery compartment got flooded I went to the bathroom to drain the water but the unit exploded and it was so bright I had to close my eyes but did not wake from the dream and felt money gone down the drain (cost me 114 dream dollars) because of my carelessness and threw the burnt unit in the bin....so yeah the light went off 3 times in the dream.

Resettable delay time was set at 9min 5s and interval between cues was set at 1min 25s.

IMJ