Questions about dreaming

Hi,

I recently discovered lucid dreaming, and I immediately became very interested in it. Over the past two days - since I found out - I have educated myself on lucid dreaming methods, mechanics, and lurked around on this forum. In addition to this, I've read about the mechanics of sleeping in humans.

Despite all this, I still have some questions unanswered:

1. Some people on this website claim to have dreams (or even lucid dreams) longer than 60 minutes. How is this possible, considering that a (regular) REM cycle usually lasts this long at most?

2. Dreams are created during the REM stage of your sleep. A complete cycle consisits of REM and NREM sleep. Correct me if I am wrong, but dreams are not created in NREM. Does this mean that whatever dream you may be having at the end of your REM stage will dissapear when comes time for NREM?

2-2. Assuming the answer to the last question is yes, then if I want to have numerous lucid dreams per night, does this mean I will have to wake up more times using the WILD method? If not, what method is used (DILD)?

3. For beginners who are interested in trying lucid dreaming, what method would be good to start out with? My recall ability is horrible; I haven't remembered a dream since I stopped having nightmares.

If I have said something incorrect in my questions, please correct me.
Thanks for reading.

Welcome to DV!

1. Long lucids come with experience. If I had to guess, they happen after many hours of sleep, when REM can last 60 min or more - since NREM gets shorter, and we know, that the NREM+REM lasts in average 90-110 min. There is also the Time expansion thing, when in your dream you stretch the time, so it seemingly lasts longer. Someone who acctualy had dreams that long can give you better answer to this.

2. I have read some data on the net that states, that you can dream in NREM also, but it's not as frequent as in REM.
If you don't wake after the cycle is over to write down your dream and your recall is bad, there is a real chance, that you will not remember it in the morning. That's why first step for lucid dreamers is to work on your dream recall. Writing in a dream journal, even if all you remember is a color or a feeling, can help you get a better recall.

People usually wake up between cycles, so I would assume that dream will end at the end of the cycle. You can either wake up and write your dream down, or attemt to enter the same or another dream via DEILD. And if WILD and DEILD fail, you can alwas hope for a DILD.

3. Usually DILD is the easiest method. Try to work on your recall first. You can say as you falling asleep - "I will wake up after my dream". There is a good chance it will work, wheter you trying MILD/DILD or WILD/DEILD.

Hope this makes sense, please ask if you need more help:)

1. I'm not 100% on this one, but from what i've heard is that your brain interprets time differently in a dream. So it could be possible to have dreams that feel that long, while actually being only 10 minutes in real life.

2. I'm not sure on this one. I'm not an expert, but mainly bumping this thread to help you get answers.

2-2. You can use a different method to have back to back dreams. The name escapes me now, but it relies on you exiting the dream, then waking up, holding still/relaxing, and then falling into another dream. It's possible to chain your dreams together like that.

3. A simple one to use is the DILD(Dream induced lucid dream) technique, which just requires you to understand you're dreaming while you are dreaming. This can be obtained through repeated suggestions to yourself, doing regular rc(reality checks) to make sure you're not dreaming, and other methods. For dream recall one thing i would suggest is that when you wake up in the morning just sit their. Sit for a few minutes and think about your dreams as much as you can. This can help with recall. Also if you have a dream and wake up in the night, write down the dream when you wake up since it's fresh in your memory. Over time your recall becomes better anyways. At least for me it's become better.

Well about the really long dreams i guess there can be really long explanations for that, like gab rightly posted things in your dream may seem longer than they actually are, like how your subconscious can trick you into actually feeling and experiencing the dream it'll have ways of making you beleive you have been there for a long amount of time. This could lead into also the dream being possibly being phased into two different REM cycles and be so subtle you don't even notice it, not sure that's entirely true though.