Forced Brief Awakening (FBA) Induction Technique - Early Testing

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Originally Posted by broth

Great to see all the success you're having so far with this method! To be clear, most of the lucids have been DEILD re-entry's after waking up, as opposed to DILDs induced by the prompts, right?

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Unfortunately, most of them have not been DEILD re-entries, the main reason being that the volume's been too low until a couple days ago. I was only raising it 10% each night it failed, which means it took ~5 days to get to the current volume. (I probably should have increased it by 20% each time)

Before/during that, there were other issues such as bugs, and not being able to increase the volume loud enough to keep from disturbing family members. Both of those are now resolved, I believe (I fixed the bugs and got a bluetooth earbud), but it has delayed the testing process.

I now have it at 100% volume, and it's woken me up the few times I've tried it since then. (with the last one being a partial wake-up, I believe, which then dropped me back into a false awakening) (If it's still too quiet, not to worry; I'll just need to have the prompts recorded, then edit the audio file to increase the volume there)

Last night was supposed to be the first "settled" night with the new setup (not just the volume, but some long-standing bugs were finally fixed), however my bluetooth earbud fell out. :mad: (Oh well. I'll retry tonight.)

In other words, so far it's mostly been just DILDs. Many of them have been induced by voice prompts, making their way into the dream and triggering greater awareness; but the DEILD goal has been mostly delayed until about now. Starting tonight onward (or a couple days from now, depending on if this volume is truly high enough), I should start regularly either getting DEILDs as intended, or cases where it wakes me but I (/my disloyal sleepy self) take it out and then fall back asleep without it enabled.

Hopefully I can keep the resolve to leave the earbuds in in those cases.

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Originally Posted by broth

Also, do you sleep with anyone else in bed with you? Do you think the S+ sleep tracker would be accurate with another person moving around?

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No, I sleep by myself. The website says it should work in bed with a partner, as long as you have the device aligned properly. I know in my case, the device is at bed-level, directly to the side, so if I were sleeping with someone else, I'd expect it to work anyway since my body would mostly (if on back) or completely (if on side) block the line-of-sight to the other person.

Thanks for the thorough response, Venryx. Nice to see someone carrying out research in this area. I'm still new, but I've had a couple EASY lucid dreams from CAN-WILD (and 1 from DEILD) so this experiment is very interesting to me. Obviously the main issue with CAN-WILD is being woken up during a REM period, when you are still about to enter another dream. I also think this is a problem with DEILD, since many micro-awakenings occur at the end of a dream cycle/rem period, when you are about to enter into NREM sleep.

For those reasons, I'll definitely be following your experiment over the next few weeks. I'm also going to continue practicing CAN-WILD on my own. Right now I have an auto-snooze alarm set to go off several times throughout the night, with the goal being that at least one of those alarms catches me in a REM period. But of course with the S+ sleep tracker, the chances of that go up towards 100%.

Anyways, this is all to say that I appreciate the time you're spending in reporting the progress of your experiment and I hope you keep it up!

Next attempt (long sleep, uninterrupted): full lucid
Next attempt (post-sleep nap): full lucid

Sleep graph:

Spoiler for *:

http://i.imgur.com/j9AYVgB.png

So the last couple nights were interesting.

First, the night before last night, I had the issue again of my bluetooth earbud falling out. I tried again that evening, but my earbud ran out of batteries and turned off. However, I had a DILD anyway. I don't know if it ran out of batteries before or after my DILD. Also, what woke me in the end was a voice prompt that played through my main tablet speaker (since my earbud disconnected), so it may have also been triggered by an over-the-air voice prompt. So anyway, the first night was pretty unclear, so I ignored it.

Last night was much better, though still "messy". The first sleep-cycle, it successfully woke me from sleep. I then fell asleep again quickly, and had a full-lucid DILD. However, on awakening I found my earbud to have fallen out. That's actually fine, since the earbud already did its function (of causing a brief awakening), but thought I'd mention it.

The second sleep-cycle, it did not wake me from sleep. However, I had a weak-lucid DILD anyway. Same thing as previous: I awoke to find my earbud out. Note that both times it was under my ear, so it may have just fallen out. However, it's also possible I (disloyally) took it out, despite not remembering doing so. Anyway, I ignored this result since my earbud had fallen out, and I did not recall having a "brief awakening" triggered by a prompt.

Finally, the third sleep-cycle (after a 40-minute wake-up) actually functioned the way it was supposed to. I went to bed, and awoke later, finding myself in my room. I don't specifically remember the voice prompt sound, but that's to be expected some of the time as the message is very brief (just the quick word "lucid"). I was very much still in a dream-like state, so within seconds I was back in a dream, simply by visualizing some random scene of me standing in front of a large building with a gate in front of it. The visualization soon became full vision, and I "stepped into" it by beginning to walk around.

The last of the three lucids was the longest, and the only one I still remember the ending of. They were pretty fun, though I didn't pursue my dream goals as much as I had planned (I got wrapped up in the dream plots, especially the last one, in part because there were annoying cops that kept pursuing us). I remember parts from all three of them, though am too lazy to write it all out.

Anyway, all in all it went well, as I got another success with the technique in the way it was actually intended. Hopefully I can do so again tonight. (and find a robust solution to the earbud-sometimes-coming-out problem -- maybe tape?)

Success rate:
Long sleep: 9/10(+1 interrupted) (3 weak, 6 full)
Post-sleep nap: 3/3 (0 weak, 3 full)
Isolated nap: 1/2 (0 weak, 1 full)

Just wanted to mention that I finished uploading the latest version of the app to the Play store, so if anyone's interesting in trying this technique themselves (using the S+ sleep tracker to detect rem), they can now do so: https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...id=v.lucidlink

Note that if you have the app already installed, you'll have to manually approve the app update, since it adds some new permissions.

Hi Venryx,
With more data under your belt now, what's your opinion of the accuracy of the REM detection provided by the S+ sleep tracker?

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Originally Posted by FryingMan

Hi Venryx,
With more data under your belt now, what's your opinion of the accuracy of the REM detection provided by the S+ sleep tracker?

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It's held up well; I'd say the typical case is still as accurate as I estimated before. The good majority of the time, it's still correct on whether I awoke from REM (the easy case to check, since you often wake with very recent memories from a dream -- as well as vivid/lucid dreams from which you awake directly). As for knowing the onset of rem, I have less certainty with that, but I can say that I haven't seen evidence against its being accurate (well, other than once when it played during pre-sleep trance) -- which is a good sign, given that my app starts playing prompts a mere 3 minutes in. (conversely, some of the time it's clearly correct, like when it's succeeded in waking me from a dream to start a DEILD attempt)

One thing to note however, is that if you look at the sleep graph of the two days above, you'll notice that the morning of the first day is more "volatile" than that of the second day. That interests me, and I suspect it might be because of a change in sleeping positions, with the second day's sleeping position more receptive to S+ monitoring than the first's. I haven't confirmed this yet, but I suspect that's why -- and if so, it would mean that some nights would probably be less accurate than the typical case. (though that's probably still "good enough", since I haven't noticed issues with it in my testing so far)

Next attempt (long sleep, interrupted): failure

Sleep graph: too lazy

Wow, so apparently even the new volume is not enough. It played about 8 prompts during the night, but I don't recall it ever waking me. Cranking it up again! (either through a custom audio file, or a longer speech message)

Success rate:
Long sleep: 9/10(+2 interrupted) (3 weak, 6 full)
Post-sleep nap: 3/3 (0 weak, 3 full)
Isolated nap: 1/2 (0 weak, 1 full)

Next attempt (long sleep, uninterrupted): ignored (fell asleep without technique active)
Next attempt (long sleep, interrupted): failure (volume too low to wake me)
Next attempt (post-sleep nap): failure (was woken at least once; feel like I may have had a weak one, but don't remember one distinctly)

Sleep graph:

Spoiler for *:

http://i.imgur.com/HyaZjbC.png

The good news is that it's now waking me again, at 70%, because now I'm using an audio file instead of text-to-speech. Also, it's a more distinct buzzing sound, rather than speech, which I think may help if heard in-dream. (could be either way; speech because it has textual content/meaning, sound because it's sharper and more distinct audio-wise -- hence experimentation)

The bad news is that, while I may have had some low-level lucidity, I couldn't verify this, so have two more failures. : (

If I get a few more failures in a row, I will reinstate "setting my intention" to perform deild-type procedures once I'm awoken by the prompts. Atm I'm just brain-deadly going to sleep like normal, which may be causing me to just reenter sleep normally instead of trying to maintain awareness. (I'm guessing this is the case, since I don't remember anything other than the ~2 seconds where I'm awoken)

Another thing to note is that I think the rem-detection was not very accurate for yesterday. If you look at it, it doesn't seem plausible that so much rem would occur at the start like that. I don't know for sure, but I suspect it was a bad rem-detection session.

Success rate:
Long sleep: 9/11(+2 interrupted) (3 weak, 6 full)
Post-sleep nap: 3/4 (0 weak, 3 full)
Isolated nap: 1/2 (0 weak, 1 full)

Next attempt (long sleep, uninterrupted): failure
Next attempt: no data, since fell asleep without turning on
Next attempt: no data, since I took earbud out on first awakening (may have made it too loud/jarring at 90%)

Sleep graph: too lazy

The success rate has dropped some, I think in part because:
* Standard loss of excitement/focus, which means my mind thinks about other stuff more, so is less rememberant of the lucid mindset during awakenings and the like.
* I'm becoming aware of some deficiencies in the rem-detection, which makes me lazier on implementing it each time.

On the first point, this can be fixed by setting your mindset before bed. This is standard advice, although I'm not doing it most nights at the moment, in part because I'd like to see how well I can get the setup working "on its own", ie how well the technique can work "as a base technique", making it work more consistently between users, and allowing distinct combination with MILD and such.

On that second point, I still think the detection is good, but I'm becoming aware of cases where it falters. For example, it does not react quickly enough to awakenings. A number of times it's correctly detected rem, but then after I wake up, and even move some, it still thinks I'm in rem and plays the next prompt. Which can be jarring, and contributes to my disloyalty in taking them out sometimes.

The thing is, I can fix this. I just need to monitor the raw breathing data myself, and whenever sharp movements (which only occur during awakenings, afaik) happen, I can just override the sleep-tracker detected-sleep-state, and tell the other code in my program that those times are actually awakenings. (with the override lasting a few minutes each time)

I do think that with correct configuration, it (rem-detection + deild wakeups) will work reliably. We just need to keep working at it until we clear all the problems. (Shoutout to lucidcoder and fryingman for working on their own setup using infrared cameras! Always good to have multiple teams working in parallel.)

Success rate:
Long sleep: 9/12(+2 interrupted) (3 weak, 6 full)
Post-sleep nap: 3/4 (0 weak, 3 full)
Isolated nap: 1/2 (0 weak, 1 full)

Well I decided to get all Methodical sleep for 10 hours and do long WBTB where I would leave and go write up the dreams
Actual result woke at least twice before 12:30, at 12:30 noted the time and reflected on the dream
Then just before 1:30 went to write up 12:30 and the latter dream then decided to just get up and stay up all night

Attachment 9781

Well time to try again tonight (oh and No 5-HTP was taken)

Oh I did definitely have a dream at 1:00 just before final awakening, but no REM was reported
also as for the last supposed light sleep I think I was just laying there about to give up, I don't think I drifted off at all

My goal is not DEILD, but rather to have signal penetrate at REM onset +2Min for DILD using light vibration scent or whatever
just playing around for now tho, I have no out put devices

Well this Hypno does match up fairly well with what I remember so it is likely fairly accurate

here is a quote from my dreamself in the dream just before mdinite "You're dead, but I often see you in dreams" said non-lucid-self.
(DOH!)

Attachment 9782

tonight I'll take some 5HTP then skip to tomorrow night see if the pattern shifts
In the image above I'm surprised at the strength of the first and second REM, and supprised at the thin-ness of all that follow (the last 2 probably being different parts of the 5th REM cycle)

Well not too much sleep tonight only 5+hours but the 100Mg 5-HTP does seem to have created a lot of blue on the LEFT
Not much Yellow on the right tho, however I often recall dreams at awakening from the green supposed light sleep

Attachment 9784

Wow, I've been gone three days!? Did not feel like that. (I've been busier due to a family health issue)

Very cool to see someone else posting sleep graphs, cooleymd! Will be fun to see how your results end up being trying audio prompts and other stimulus. (in particular, whether you'll have the same experience with needing ever louder alarm sounds!)

Next attempt (long sleep, uninterrupted): failure
Next attempt (long sleep, uninterrupted): full lucid

Sleep graph: sorry, I want to rush off and relax watching anime, so even a 2 minute delay is too much. : P

Also, no commentary other than that the lucid was a nice and vivid one, however I don't remember hearing the prompt. (Which is crazy considering how much I've increased the volume since the start. Why are our brains so resistant to repeating sounds? It's not like it was even making me sleep deprived... Anyway, I will try increasing it again.)

Success rate:
Long sleep: 10/13(+2 interrupted) (3 weak, 7 full)
Post-sleep nap: 3/4 (0 weak, 3 full)
Isolated nap: 1/2 (0 weak, 1 full)

I may be mistaken but I believe I am the most experienced person in the world when it comes to alarm based REM detection DEILD method. I have used every device available and have even crafted some myself. I now use the Aurora headband being the ONLY person in the UK to own one. I have tried the following devices to exhaustion will in depth analysis of the years.

Apple watch with an Android app that rings an iphone which in turn vibrated the watch at set periods during the night for a set amount of time
Headphones with auto-stop alarms
Earbuds with auto stop alarms
Iphones attached to my leg
RemDreamer
Remee
Aurora Headband
Samsung Gear attached to my ankle with a vibration (ditto) device crafted into a ring on my finger
Wired headphones / unwired headphones
Every lucid dreaming app on the market

I really have tried everything on earth every night and I now have a lot of data to work with and have had many dozens of lucid dreams this way

I have reached many conclusions and just some main points are the following...

it doesnt matter what device you use as long as it can rouse you from your dream and then switch off after a few seconds

I now use the Aurora headband and the REM detection is great, and its quite comfortable. It is the ONLY non-mask device on the planet that will detect REM and then flash light cues with sound.

Im happy to answer any questions as DEILD is my passion that I practise every night

I swear it missed several dreams towards the beginning of Hypnos [LEFT side] as I awoke and remembered them

No suplements at all in this one below
Attachment 9786

Attachment 9787
I took 200mg 5HTP in the one above

after this I took like six naps on the third one the machine reported me as absent and scored me with a Zero
but I didn't record the last two and in them I became lucid
in the last of them I became lucid, lost the light, couldn't get it back, lost lucidity, regained lucidity, false awakened checked the clock it was less than last awakening, checked again it was different but still to low, then woke up and checked the real clock that had a much more realistic time :)
(as awlays I counted this as one dream)

Here are what naps look like when well rested in the long Hypno I swear I dreamed before the other awakening too based on recall

Here we see my 7th Nap where the single REM at End was 30+ min :)
Attachment 9788

followed by my 8th Nap of nearly 25 min Rem at the end but unreported (by S+ device) dreaming before the first interuption
Attachment 9789

I just took my 5 HTP for tonight but as you can see in these two late naps There was a lot of Deep Sleep already (BLUE)
so who knows what will happen in 2 hrs when I go to bed, I suspect it will be hard to get to sleep and to stay asleep

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Originally Posted by ezzolucid

I may be mistaken but I believe I am the most experienced person in the world when it comes to alarm based REM detection DEILD method. I have used every device available and have even crafted some myself. I now use the Aurora headband being the ONLY person in the UK to own one. I have tried the following devices to exhaustion will in depth analysis of the years.

Apple watch with an Android app that rings an iphone which in turn vibrated the watch at set periods during the night for a set amount of time
Headphones with auto-stop alarms
Earbuds with auto stop alarms
Iphones attached to my leg
RemDreamer
Remee
Aurora Headband
Samsung Gear attached to my ankle with a vibration (ditto) device crafted into a ring on my finger
Wired headphones / unwired headphones
Every lucid dreaming app on the market

I really have tried everything on earth every night and I now have a lot of data to work with and have had many dozens of lucid dreams this way

I have reached many conclusions and just some main points are the following...

it doesnt matter what device you use as long as it can rouse you from your dream and then switch off after a few seconds

I now use the Aurora headband and the REM detection is great, and its quite comfortable. It is the ONLY non-mask device on the planet that will detect REM and then flash light cues with sound.

Im happy to answer any questions as DEILD is my passion that I practise every night

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DUDE! FIVE MONTHS OF CRUEL SILENCE AFTER YOUR TEASE ABOUT GETTING THE AURORA! Out with it! Details, data! Spit it oot, lad! You've got to have tons of graphs and success rates by now! How accurate is the Aurora REM detection now?

How did you craft the vibration device onto a ring? How was it controlled? How did the smart-phone-strapped-to-the-leg work? I tried it a few times on the arm held in by a sock I cut in half but I found it still bothered my sleep.

I have my own EILD setup in progress based on bedside night vision camera. I have face detection and eye movement detection pretty well working, but it's just bits and pieces of little building blocks that I still need to weave into a working whole and smooth flow. I call it "The Night's Watch" :).

The camera captures movement location and magnitude perfectly (with nothing to wear!) I would like to gather heart rate & temperature info a well probably from an under-the-sheet pad (there's a commercial product that does that, I may try to reverse engineer its communication protocol to see if I can get live data into my own system). I'd also like to create my own (or repurpose where possible, so far all systems I see are closed, nobody wants to give out an API to live, streaming data from their device) notification devices. LED displays are easy as are sound. Vibration devices that are comfortable enough to sleep with are more of a challenge.

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Originally Posted by ezzolucid

I may be mistaken but I believe I am the most experienced person in the world when it comes to alarm based REM detection DEILD method. I have used every device available and have even crafted some myself. I now use the Aurora headband being the ONLY person in the UK to own one. I have tried the following devices to exhaustion will in depth analysis of the years.

Apple watch with an Android app that rings an iphone which in turn vibrated the watch at set periods during the night for a set amount of time
Headphones with auto-stop alarms
Earbuds with auto stop alarms
Iphones attached to my leg
RemDreamer
Remee
Aurora Headband
Samsung Gear attached to my ankle with a vibration (ditto) device crafted into a ring on my finger
Wired headphones / unwired headphones
Every lucid dreaming app on the market

I really have tried everything on earth every night and I now have a lot of data to work with and have had many dozens of lucid dreams this way

I have reached many conclusions and just some main points are the following...

it doesnt matter what device you use as long as it can rouse you from your dream and then switch off after a few seconds

I now use the Aurora headband and the REM detection is great, and its quite comfortable. It is the ONLY non-mask device on the planet that will detect REM and then flash light cues with sound.

Im happy to answer any questions as DEILD is my passion that I practise every night

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Neat! I'll probably have a number of things I'd like to ask, although not right at this moment since I'm heading to bed. (and I'm focusing on a programming project the last week or so, so haven't been working on the lucid dreaming stuff much lately -- though am still very interested in the approach and will continue)

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Originally Posted by cooleymd

Here are what naps look like when well rested in the long Hypno I swear I dreamed before the other awakening too based on recall

Here we see my 7th Nap where the single REM at End was 30+ min :)
Attachment 9788

followed by my 8th Nap of nearly 25 min Rem at the end but unreported (by S+ device) dreaming before the first interuption
Attachment 9789

I just took my 5 HTP for tonight but as you can see in these two late naps There was a lot of Deep Sleep already (BLUE)
so who knows what will happen in 2 hrs when I go to bed, I suspect it will be hard to get to sleep and to stay asleep

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Interesting results cooley! It sounds like it's missed a number of rem-segments in your case; that's too bad, and suggests I may not be sensitive enough to rem-recording misses. But it's still good to have other people's data here to give a broader picture of the device's abilities. (so thanks!)

As for my own testing, I've only used it ~twice the last week or so, because I've been focusing on some daytime programming projects. The two times I did it were yesterday and the day before that, and both times it woke me (well one time woke me, the other time caused false awakening, at time when out of ear but still faintly audible), but I ended up either taking them out or having them fall out. (probably the former)

Anyway, I will continue testing, with various volumes and types of promptings -- I've just been off lately because my mind's been elsewhere. I'll probably use it as I head to bed in a few minutes. (I think I'm going to try taping the earbud to my ear this time, so if I take it out myself, at least I'll have to be explicit/memorable about it)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FryingMan

DUDE! FIVE MONTHS OF CRUEL SILENCE AFTER YOUR TEASE ABOUT GETTING THE AURORA! Out with it! Details, data! Spit it oot, lad! You've got to have tons of graphs and success rates by now! How accurate is the Aurora REM detection now?

How did you craft the vibration device onto a ring? How was it controlled? How did the smart-phone-strapped-to-the-leg work? I tried it a few times on the arm held in by a sock I cut in half but I found it still bothered my sleep.

I have my own EILD setup in progress based on bedside night vision camera. I have face detection and eye movement detection pretty well working, but it's just bits and pieces of little building blocks that I still need to weave into a working whole and smooth flow. I call it "The Night's Watch" :).

The camera captures movement location and magnitude perfectly (with nothing to wear!) I would like to gather heart rate & temperature info a well probably from an under-the-sheet pad (there's a commercial product that does that, I may try to reverse engineer its communication protocol to see if I can get live data into my own system). I'd also like to create my own (or repurpose where possible, so far all systems I see are closed, nobody wants to give out an API to live, streaming data from their device) notification devices. LED displays are easy as are sound. Vibration devices that are comfortable enough to sleep with are more of a challenge.

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Aaaannd..... more silence?! Did I offend you or something?

Venryx, what's your current opinion of the S+ device? Is it worth purchasing? Are you finding its REM detection accurate or not for signaling from within dreams?

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Originally Posted by FryingMan

Venryx, what's your current opinion of the S+ device? Is it worth purchasing? Are you finding its REM detection accurate or not for signaling from within dreams?

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I think it's worth purchasing, yes. My estimation of its accuracy is a little lower than my last post on it, but it's still good enough imo to be useful.

I've not been posting because I've been focusing heavily on another programming project, and have not been doing the nightly attempts. I know it's really easy to just put an earbud in and turn on an app, objectively speaking, but when I have my mind set on something, it can make even a minute or two before bed too much -- also, because it changes my thought patterns, ie, I like to not think about other major projects (of which this lucid setup is one) when I'm focusing on another. [Oh yeah, and also the fact that then I'm kinda obligated to record all my results, else it would seem like I'm cherry-picking -- however, that takes a fair amount of time each morning]

I will come back and resume my tests and configuration, but not until I've at least launched my new project; it's a debate-mapping website which I've planned on building for a few years now. I'll probably even post a link here when it's up just so people know what I've been working on.

Oh I understand. I'm a month behind on my The Night's Watch project, I've just been fiddling around with components & MCUs and serial programming and watching Netflix instead of going to the next step of integration and serious data acquisition.

I've purchased a Polar H7 BLE chest strap heart rate monitor to add to TNW and figured out how to get at the data via BLE protocol on the command line (gatttool). That's good enough to produce a setup that checks heart rate once a minute or so (could up the frequency if the bedtime clock indicates being close to a REM period, up to the next major movement/waking). I assume I could actually do the same (gatttool that is, may need to be running continuously though) with the S+, all I have to know is the right characteristic address. Are you doing anything with the heartrate/respiration rates, or just the "REM start" notification?

The H7 is not super comfortable and is most certainly not meant to be worn all night. But I'll try it for a while, long enough to see if heart rate changes correlate well with REM eye movements. The potential plus is that I can have a chance of catching REM when facing away from the camera (but I hope to solve that problem with the 2nd RasPiZero W which is on its way to me now).

If figure I could add in the notification from the S+ to the TNW system as another event input to the REM detection heuristic. Once I have enough data I can tune the heuristic to my sleep/dream patterns and will be off to the races!

Oops, sorry for the late/non-existent response!

As for using the heartrate/respiration rates, I did use the raw respiration rate for one function: I had the app monitor it for "wake up" movements, to cause the alarm sounds to turn off right away. This was because the REM/sleep-stage detection would not adjust instantly. (it instead took a couple minutes unless I moved a ton) Other than that though, no.

But yeah, I think the S+ is a meaningful input to add to your mix if you're going for a full-fledged approach (ie. are unsatisfied with just one or two means of detecting). Do note that it's worth experimenting to find the ideal position, if you do end up using it. It took me a while to find a position where it would work regardless of sleeping position/angle. (for me, it was straight to the side, at around my waist -- despite them suggesting the chest is better)

By the way, I stopped updating here because I stopped using this technique/setup (well, I used it for a while more, and then stopped).

It works well -- at one point I was getting lucid or semi-lucid dreams the majority of nights I used it (ie. >50% success rate) -- however, I stopped because of a combination of two main reasons:
1) I was getting annoyed some by having to wear the sleep headband/headphones. If I were living on my own, I could just use speakers, but as it stands speakers might disturb my family members.
2) It was disturbing my sleep some, at the frequency/aggressiveness I was using.

If it were just one of those reasons, I probably would have continued, but as it went, it was enough to cause me to kinda just fade off (again) in my usage, getting focused instead on daytime programming projects. And when I resumed enthusiasm for lucid dreaming (a few weeks ago), I wanted to focus on another technique now. (for fun, and for the two main reasons above)

I'll probably come back to this approach if the other approaches I'm trying fail, but for now it's on the storage shelf.
==============================
BY THE WAY: I know some people hate this sort of thing, but... I'm trying out a super secret new technique which I'm pretty curious about seeing the results from. It's an extension of the Random Voice Prompt (RVP) technique I posted about earlier.

It's not really secret actually, so I'll just give a summary: basically, it's the RVP system, except simplified to just the random numbers, and you have it run throughout the day instead of just when going to bed. It's kind of like turning it into an ADA technique, EXCEPT that it's a much easier version of ADA because the action you perform is very fast (<2 seconds), and then you can return back to whatever you were doing. It's fast enough that I have it run a voice prompt EVERY 60 SECONDS, and even then it does not overly disrupt my activities. (even programming, watching movies, etc.)

I've been doing it a few days, and have only had one success so far (a dream character saying 1 2 2 1, which I immediately recognized did not match the "all even or odd" pattern, so became lucid), however, I am optimistic that it will eventually yield good results, just on account of how frequently I now perform the pattern check throughout the day. (Every 60 seconds is pretty often! I've performed the checks many times just while writing this post.)

Anyway, one thing I like about this new technique is that it's very distinct and therefore easy for everyone to understand and perform consistently. This is a quality that most techniques do not have -- most need substantial explanation for people to be on the same page. For this technique, it's this simple:
1) Enable the voice-prompt engine.
2) Whenever you hear a four-digit number spoken, check the pattern of digits: if they're all even, mentally-speak "even"; if they're all odd, mentally-speak "odd"; if it's neither, say "Wrong! Lucid!", and you're in a lucid! -- because the real voice-prompt engine only ever does "all even" or "all odd" patterns. (One further possibility: if it's too muffled to hear. In that case, just do a quick reality-check, as sometimes you can hear the real prompts from within dreams, but it's too muffled so you can't hear it clearly.)

Anyway, I'm heading to bed in a few minutes, to test my luck. I'm in this experiment for the long haul though -- even if I don't get any results, I plan to stick with it for at least a month (probably two or more), because to me, the idea seems very promising. (and it's easy to perform, so I should be able to keep it up that long without straining)

When I'm further along I will make a thread specifically for the technique, and give live updates there. Just thought I'd give a quick peek into what I'm working on.