Thread: Noob with a question

Hello all,

I have been interested in LD for about a year now. I have made a half hearted attempt to keep a dream journal, do r/c's and induce a lucid dream but now I feel ready to commit 100%. I have read 2 books on the subject and countless web pages but am unable to find the answer to one question so I will ask it here.

I have read a good way to induce a wild is to sleep for 6 hours, be awake for 2 hours then go back to sleep as your rem period is so much longer. My question is, how long can you be awake for until your sleep cycle resets and you start with the first cycle where your rem sleep only accounts for 15 or so minutes of the 90 minute cycle. The reason I ask this is I work 2-12 hour day shifts followed by 2-12 hour night shifts. I have the luxury of being able to sleep at work if things are quite. So I may go to work on my first night shift and sleep for 3 hours between 12am and 3am. Now if I go to bed at 9am when i get home, am I in my fourth hour of a sleep cycle or am I back at the beginning.

My sleep schedule can be a little messed up sometimes. I get 8 hours of sleep and sometimes more but there may be 3-6 hours of awake time in between. Sorry if this may sound confusing. I want to try all the methods and find one that works for me, however, the wild method as I understand works best after 5-6 hours of sleep and sometimes I don't know if i am wasting my time trying because I am back at the beginning of my sleep cycle.

Thanks for reading this long and somewhat confusing first post.