New, with a question

[WolfBlade]

Hello. I'm new to the forum, but I've had a few lucid, and what I consider half-lucid dreams. Anyway, being the person that I am and having the interests that I do, I was wondering if anyone had some really good techniques for inducing sleep, or could point me to a good site on the topic. I think I would have a really easy time with having lucid dreams if I could just get to sleep on time every night or whenever I wanted to have a nap or something. I've had a problem getting to sleep at night for two years now, and as I am now between 10 and 20 hours behind in my sleep it is hard for me to catch up. So, again, does anyone know a really good way to induce sleep? I could really use it. WolfBlade

[Gwendolyn]

Make sure you get some excercize every day. You might consider doing an excercize that is quite taxing, so that you can ensure the fact that your body will know that you need sleep. You might also want to try a little melatonin before bed or valarian root. If it's too bad of a problem though, I'd see a health professional. You need sleep, and you don't want to loose too much.

[The Blue Meanie]

Hey, I used to have a similar problem AS you, until about a month ago. What I did: Regularised my sleep schedule so I was going to bed and waking up at roughly the same time every day. Get some good exercise mid-afternoon, or later in the evening if necessary. Have a hot shower (preferably, BATH) about half an hour before bed. As hot as possible without it being uncomfortable. This makes your body hotter, and makes it so your body gets lazy and doesn't work so hard to keep you warm... so, you cool down and your heartbet slows, etc, your system slows down, making it MUCH easier to get to sleep. DONT take sleeping pills, they can have bad side-effects. Get some sort of ritual, like, having a hot chocolate before bed. If it's conveniant, have sex before going to bed/sleep, that should help also. If not sex, then... uhhhh... a conveniant alternative??? Try using some breathing techniques as well, they sometimes help. If you can learn to consciously slow your heart-rate and breathing, this makes it INCREDIBLY easy to drift off to sleep. EDIT: Corrected grammatical mistake. "Similar problem TO you"? Agh! What was I THINKING!!!! AS, dammit, AS!!!

[Burns]

Welcome to the forum, wolfblade! Obviously you've come to the right place for dreaming advice because both Gwen and TBM gave some great suggestions! Good luck with everything.

[dudesuperior]

Hey WolfBlade! You could try the 61 point relaxation technique and try and drift off that way... http://www.dreamviews.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10742