Having trouble with WBTB- Help appreciated

[xEddY]

Hey everyone! New to this site. Okay, so I've tried to WBTB. Last night I set my alarm 6 hours after I went to sleep. I woke up, when to the bathroom, had a sip of water and got in the mindset for having a WBTB. I stayed awake for 32 minutes The problem I had was I could not get back to sleep. I Layed down for an hour trying to fall asleep but still no luck? My attempt before however was different. I didn't have a LD but I woke up about 5 hours after sleep. I was awake for about 5-10 minutes. I went back to sleep, It felt like my body was sleeping but I was still awake, I could see this image of a dream or something? After that I thought to myself, what if that was my chance for a LD? So what I'm basically asking is- Do I have to stay awake for 20-60 mins or is it specific to each person? Any tips for relaxing and falling asleep? THANKS FOR READING!!

[Astaroth]

You need to find out how much you have to stay awake because, as you say, it's changes from one person to another. Also experiment with how much you sleep before doing a WBTB and sometimes you don't fall asleep if you're too excited. For example it works different for me; I have to stay awake almost an hour and do something that exhausts me, like study Spain history and I have to sleep a max. of 5/5.5 hours. Good luck!

[EthyWoo]

try a guided meditation, that relaxes you easily Breathing as if you where asleep (kinda deep hard to explain, try looking it up) breathing exercises work very well also ordinary meditation works great, good luck

[FryingMan]

To add a bit to what EthyWoo wrote, for lucid dreamers it's a really good investment of time to learn how to fall back asleep in the middle of the night. Nighttime LD practices can frequently result in night-time insomnia for light sleepers. I had several stretches of middle-of-the-night waking insomnia that I had to battle through, and I spent a lot of time looking into sleeping techniques and environmental adjustments to make. There is a lot of material out there just a google away, or look at my prior posts on the subject. Ultimately you need to find what works for you, because only you can find our where in your mind and/or body it is that you hold tension. In short, when returning to bed, the following works for me in just about all circumstances except frequently-repeated external disturbances (noise that gets through earplugs, motion from bed partner) or when I just have absolutely no drowsiness on tap (after sleeping too much for example) including: naps, middle of the night WBTB, and even first to-bed if I'm stimulated. It can be faster or slower based on my mental state, but it has yet to fail me once I put all the pieces together: + do some relaxing breaths, maybe a bit longer than sleeping breaths, then switch to "sleeping" breaths, how you breath when you sleep (sort of "normal" breaths, maybe a bit shallower, find what works best for you). + release all tension from your body on multiple exhales: forehead, cheeks (this one surprised me), jaw (major one), upper & lower body (I found that if I had fun daydreams before sleep, that I smiled, and the smile stayed in my cheeks holding tension) + *unfocus* and relax your eyes. This was the major discovery for me: I held my eyes focused looking at my eyelids a lot, or my eyes kept darting around a lot. If they dart around alot you can move your eyes in complete circles 4 times each direction and this helps to calm them down. If you see images while falling asleep, try not to "look" at them with your eyes or focus on them, simply passively observe them with your "mind's eye." + do not fidget. Scratch itches, swallow, adjust position for maximum comfort, etc., but eliminate all extra movement as this signals your brain that you're not ready to sleep yet. + do not think ever that "I am trying to go back to sleep". Simply have one and only one goal: to try to relax more and more, and go "deeper and deeper" into relaxation with each breath. Trust nature to do its thing: you WILL fall asleep if you keep your mind and body relaxed long enough. + keep monitoring your body for tension: keep releasing tension over and over from mind and body. + If thoughts bother you, imagine them pouring out of your head into a flow of water and seeing them flow away from you. + don't try to force thoughts out, acknowledge them and let them pass. + do not get frustrated at occasional external noise. I either tell myself that the sound of the loud passing truck outside is actually the sound of a big wave crashing on the beach, or I say "everything I hear is making me more and more relaxed" + I will sometimes speak in my mind to myself, "I am getting more and more relaxed, with each exhale, deeper and deeper, more and more relaxed," and so on. Sometimes that helps in tough cases. + if after all of this after 15 or 20 minutes you don't feel any drowsiness at all, get out of bed and sit quietly away from the bed/bedroom. Sit in a chair, move to another room, make adjustments (is the room too hot? too noisy? are you feeling hungry?). After a little while, get back in bed. In the hardest of cases I've had to get out of bed twice, once to a rocking chair, and once to the kitchen for a quick little bowl of cereal, and after that I fell back asleep. Do not lie in bed awake for hours, this teaches your mind that bed is a place where it's OK not to sleep. You'll read this on the net, too: use the bedroom (or bed) ONLY for sleep (or fun activities with a partner), NEVER read in bed, etc.