Thread: question

DILD is the method you want to let you do this. It's where you become lucid during a dream by spotting that it is one. Here's a tutorial for it
http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ead.php?t=9423

Also MILD doesn't involve waking up and encompasses a sort of meditation http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ead.php?t=1885

The only techniques that really require waking are WILD and WBTB, WILD is hard and not recommended for beginners anyway.

Keep a dream journal and practice the two I've linked to, they've very, very good.

The reason that everyone uses WBTB is because the REM period (when you dream) gets longer as the night goes on, and is virtually non-existent in the first few hours of sleep. Also, it is possible to have lucid dreams in the later REM periods while never waking up (say you sleep continuously for 9 hours), but I find it harder to remember my dreams if I don't wake up prior to them.

This really depends on how quickly you naturally enter REM. Some people enter long REM absurdly quickly after falling asleep. Most, however, have only few and short REM periods until later in the night. That's why it's recommended that you wake up about 30-90min prior to your normal wake up time, and then fall asleep again after about a half-hour of mind-stimulating (not body-stimulating) activity. This jars your consciousness into recalling the long REM periods you have after long sleeps.

You don't HAVE to do this; lucid dreams are certainly possible earlier in the night. It's just you have longer and generally more vivid dreams later, which increases you chances to actually become lucid. I guess it depends whether you think waking up earlier is worth it or not.