Thread: Using a SmartWatch to wake at the end of a REM cycle?

I've got a Samsung Smart Watch, which is meant to be able to track sleep cycles, although I've heard some skeptical reviews from people who should know. Anyway. It should be quite possible to devise an app so that the watch vibrates or buzzes to wake the user, just as they are coming out of a REM cycle (or perhaps at other points, depending on needs).

This seems like such an obvious idea that I'm sure someone has done it.

Does anyone know of anything like that out there? Can anyone make any recommendations?

Thanks for anything anyone can offer.

Nothing?

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That sounds like an interesting idea, and I remember thinking about that too when I saw my friend's watch. I would be interested in what is out there as well, but I do not know.

Well, after a bit of research, I found that Sleep as Android, which seems to be one of the top sleep tracking apps, may be able to do what I'm looking for. The idea seems to be that it vibrates or sounds when it calculates that you are in REM, but not enough to wake you up. It seems like it's compatible with the Samsung Smartwatch, and some other wearables. I'm finding setting it up all a bit daunting, to be honest, but I'll set aside an hour or two to work it out soon. I'm still working on recall more than lucidity, so I'm not in a rush. Here's a line to the app documentation:

https://docs.sleep.urbandroid.org/sl..._dreaming.html

The app is just sort of "guessing" when you're in REM. The connection with the smart watch seems just to be in signaling, not in using the watch's calculation of REM (which it may not do in real time anyway, devices typicaly send the night's data to a server system to calculate the sleep cycles). Yes there are groups of people interested in this and working on it, but haven't hit a sweet spot of an inexpensive and reliable REM detection and signaling device for lucid dreaming.

Hehe. During the day times, I work with economists. They always like to use the word "estimate" rather than "guess." But I take your point. It will be interesting to come back and look again in five or ten years time.

The developers of Sleep as Android provide an explanation of how they guess/estimate sleep cycles, with a comparison of the results with a good sleep lab. I guess we have to keep in mind that it was written by the developers, who have a vested interest. On the other hand, they are quite upfront about the limitations of their alogarithm.

https://sleep.urbandroid.org/sleep-lab-comparison/

It is not possible to directly identify REM phase from activity data alone. REM is just one of the phases with relatively high activity. It is characterized by rapid eye movements and we simply do not have this input from a smartphone or smartwatch.

However, there are patterns as to when REM typically occurs. It usually begins short after a light sleep ACT-phase start, and covers a large part of the light phase.

Our algorithm triggers lucid cues 10, 20, and (optionally) 30 minutes after a light phase start. And the simulation shows that there is a 50% chance that the cue really is triggered in a REM phase. REM phases occupy about 20% of the time in the dataset, so our accuracy is 2.5 times higher than if we fired the cues just randomly.

EEG is really the only solid way. After that, temperature and heart rate can give decent estimates combined with movement data (like a fitbit, which still only generally gets to about 70% agreement with EEG). Movement alone is generally a relatively poor estimate, IMO. Who knows, it may work OK for some. Try it and see. If one has really solidly regular sleep rhythms, movement plus timing may give decent results.

p.s. I hated having the phone in the bed. I kept knocking it over onto the floor in the night, waking me up and bothering my wife. The fitbit is much better in that regards (just started using it).

Originally Posted by FryingMan

EEG is really the only solid way. After that, temperature and heart rate can give decent estimates combined with movement data (like a fitbit, which still only generally gets to about 70% agreement with EEG).

Hmmm, but unless I'm badly mistaken, the Smartwatch also collects data related to temperature and heart rate. At any rate, you give the app permission to access that information! And it also drains the watch battery like crazy, which indicates that it's monitoring those things all night. I could be wrong, I only started setting it up yesterday, and it's a bit of a curve.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

p.s. I hated having the phone in the bed. I kept knocking it over onto the floor in the night, waking me up and bothering my wife. The fitbit is much better in that regards (just started using it).

I hate having it in my BEDROOM. I had some issues with wasting time with a phone in the mornings, and only got over it by locking it away in a cupboard and not accessing it til after yoga, journalling, meditation, coffee and breakfast. After that, I felt strong enough to face the day's headlines. I really don't like having a phone anywhere near me at night. Too tempting.

PS The developers of the Sleep as Android app already have some kind of mask with lights in it. They have a pipeline section somewhere that says they'd like to add sensors in it to detect eye movement. If they got that done, it would definitely be interesting!

If the watch has a way to export the data using some publicly available API, then sure, the app could incorporate it. Do the instructions mention a particular make and model of watch?

OK I checked out the docs. There are indeed a number of compatible devices. That means the phone doesn't have to be in bed with the user, which is good.

The information that dreams happen only in REM is false in my experience. You can dream any moment.
In fact you are dreaming now, part of your mind is dreaming while your "ego" is focused on this physical experiment. Its all a matter of where your awareness is focused.

I know this will sound "esoteric" to many people because of bias and reading the same information everywhere but the more you expand your mind the better.
There is no harm in allowing yourself to believe that you can have lucid dreams at any time. REM means rapid eye mouvement and while there may be a technical reason for that to happen, there is dreams outside those episodes and for example when you do WILD they can be as realistic and vivid as rem dreams, in the same way that rem dreams can not be even noticed or remembered.

Originally Posted by allismind

The information that dreams happen only in REM is false in my experience. You can dream any moment.
In fact you are dreaming now, part of your mind is dreaming while your "ego" is focused on this physical experiment. Its all a matter of where your awareness is focused.


I know this will sound "esoteric" to many people because of bias and reading the same information everywhere but the more you expand your mind the better.
There is no harm in allowing yourself to believe that you can have lucid dreams at any time. REM means rapid eye mouvement and while there may be a technical reason for that to happen, there is dreams outside those episodes and for example when you do WILD they can be as realistic and vivid as rem dreams, in the same way that rem dreams can not be even noticed or remembered.

Yeah, We still don't know much about the human brain and how it functions. Like why we sleep? or how we dream. Or we don't even know that everyone can lucid dream. I mean one can only hope that everyone is able to do it with some work but, there are those other factors that may make it harder. Everyone's chemical in their brain is different so, we don't know for sure if that fact is true for everyone or just a group of people. (IMO)

But, yes, we are dreaming right now and we need to switch our attention to see if this is a dream or not.

Originally Posted by Lang

Or we don't even know that everyone can lucid dream. I mean one can only hope that everyone is able to do it with some work but, there are those other factors that may make it harder.

Yeah. I heard LaBerge and some members of this forum saying that everyone they know who sticks with it seems to be able to do it in the end. But it did occur to me that it might be the case that people who just can't do it don't stick to it, and only those people who make some progress do. Bit hard to tell unless you made it a compulsory part of the educational system curricula. It could be a self-selection bias.

I'm getting a bit more relaxed about my goals. I would love to be able to do some of the stuff Robert Waggoner talks about, but ... I'll accept what comes. I'm quite happy to spend a couple of months just noting dreams, keeping a journal, improving recall. I'm also continuing to read LaBerge, with a few other books on my list, just to stay intrigued with the idea of lucidity. And when I'm happier with my recall, I'll start doing some of the exercise LaBerge mentions.

Even though he phrases it all in very nice, rational, scientific terms, some of the exercises he mentions are pure occult, they could have come directly from Gurdjieff, Ouspensky or Crowley. I thought that when I read his exercise of doing a lucidity check every time you hear a dog bark, touch money, see a traffic light and so on. All those guys were into that sort of stuff, as a way of constantly being alert and aware of what you are doing and what's going on around you, even when you are involved in other things. It sounds extraordinarily difficult to me!

Well, we've drifted from my question about the SmartWatch. But I'm not so interested now anyway. I think I might have been hoping for a short cut, and I think I've decided there aren't any.