Thread: A method (Interrupted Sleep Audio Method) for lucidity for those who can't get up to WBTB or newbies

Kia-ora / hello - thought I would post about a method I have been using which currently is giving me a pretty effective rate of lucidity. I call it the Interrupted Sleep Audio Method (I-AM or IS-AM). I wanted to share it as I thought it might be useful for people unable (or unwilling ) to get out of bed for a WBTB or for newbies who are struggling to get lucid. I am profusively sorry in advance if this post is too long, or if you try and method and don't like it! It works well for me and I just wanted to share.


The Basics
I do everything I can to avoid disturbing/annoying my wife (and not just during the day but also at night!). So I don't get up out of bed to do this, and its all done silently. Before bed (unknown to my wife) I stick a small pair of $1 ear buds inside my pillow slip and attach them to a small mp3 player. The mp3 player has a short audio track that repeats and says in my own voice that 'the reality check is successful' to relax and 'keep looking for the vibe'. I attach the mp3 player to a sweat wrist band. As I get in bed I place a vibrating alarm clock on my wrist and attach the mp3 player to my pj bottoms. The vibration on my wrist wakes me up silently after 6 hrs of sleep, or at least 1 30mins before my workday alarm is due to go off. I don't get up, I just set the alarm to vibrate on a low setting for 2 secs every 24mins or so and place it against my ankle. I then transfer the mp3 player with the audio on it and attach it to the sweat wrist band on my hand so it stays in place whilst I'm sleep with my thumb resting on the button which turns it on. I play the audio track once and centre my ears over the ear buds in the pillow. Then I return to sleep, sometimes this will be immediately (within a minute or two of setting things up), sometimes I won't be till after the first vibe goes off after 24mins. When the vibe goes off several things might happen:

a) most commonly I get 'normally' woken up subtley by the vibration going off, I stay still but depress my thumb, this activates the audio - I listen to it, focusing especially on the words, turn the audio off and return to sleep with hardly moving...or
b) I depress the audio button - but the audio is garbled or makes a beeping sound - I realise this is a FA and am lucid....or
c) the vibe is incorporated into a dream - ideally I do a RC and become lucid

80% of the time its a) the vibe wakes me up - I do the audio reality check/message and return to sleep and by doing this I have a very high chance of having a DILD within 1 30mins of starting the process. If I can sleep in longer I've got a chance of multiple lucid dreams.


Results -
Over the last 7 weeks I've done this method identically 19 times mostly within a 90minute time frame, I got lucid 15 of those mornings (79%), and on a couple of those mornings I got multiple lucid dreams (generally when I had 2 hrs from waking to play with) - in total I got 16 LD's total from those 19 attempts (84%).

On 2 nights I accidently failed to set the alarm on repeat mode and so woke up and returned to sleep with the intention to get lucid, but failed to get lucid at all - these 'control' nights suggest it is the method and not my intention which is working (those were frustrating!).

In contrast to the above my baserate LD rate without using any method is zero! I am not a 'natural' lucid dreamer. I have tried other methods to get lucid and have had limited success but with nowhere the success of this method.


Of interest - of this 19 LD's almost all are DILD's - which suprised me. I had developed the method to try and get the vibration incorporated into my dreams (EILD) and the vibration has indeed been incorporated a couple of times, with lucidity sometimes following. I have also had 1 WILD in the process of returning to sleep after doing the audio check. But the vast majority of the LD's are 'normal' DILD's. The method (to my mind) works by increasing the brains awareness through repetitive awakenings, with the audio acting both as a reality check and a way to prevent desensitization to the vibration signal and a way to pick up FA's and reinforcing the awareness and focusing ones intention on the task, it requires no visualization or particular thought - you just listen and the words get reinforced in your mind. So when I return to REM I either just realize something is obviously dreamlike and become lucid quickly (generally without the need to do a reality check) or I find I am thinking about lucid dreaming and then it dawns on me this IS a dream and I become lucid. The vibration cue is subtle enough to not be jarring and won't disturb a sleeping partner, neither will the audio as the ear buds are tiny. The fact you hardly move to activate the audio (I return to sleep with my thumb on the button) means you can return to REM sleep very quickly - but note the intention is NOT to DIELD, it is simply to listen carefully to the audio track.


I like this method - because a) its working
b) it works without me having to get up, and I don't feel especially tired after doing it
c) I can do it even on the mornings I have to get up at 6.20am to go to work, I just set the initial alarm to wake me up at 4.50am. I generally don't do it on consecutive nights if I'm working. I also often do it after I've had 2 glasses of wine and that seems to have no adverse effect (as long as its NZ white wine ha ha!).


Anyway - hope this of some interest to anyone! And sorry for a long post!
Cheers - T