Thread: RC + alarm DEILD experiment: would you join me ?

Originally Posted by mimihigurashi

How's the practice going for you, VagalTone?
I've tried it 4 times so far, thinking it was only a matter of adjusting the alarm settings, but I think I've come to a different realization today. I've had no DEILDs, or WILDs, only a DILD today, which was after all the alarms have went off, after I was supposed to get up, I accidentally fell asleep after becoming fairly aware, and had a DILD, so I'm pretty sure it had next to nothing to do with this DEILD business.

Now the thing with DEILD, at least in my case, is that it requires two things: complete relaxation, i.e. the relaxation you actually wake up with from sleep, and the very, very close to sleep, low awareness. Alarms take both of these things away from me. Every time an alarm went off, no matter how low I set the volume (but high enough to be able to hear it and be woken up), it would jolt me awake, suddenly spiking my awareness and ruining my initial complete relaxation. I did try to DEILD anyway, but to me, if it doesn't happen within seconds, it's certain that it's not gonna happen at all, I fell asleep unconsciously while trying every time. On the other hand, when I did have my few (amazing) DEILDs, they all happened when I managed to wake up by myself, without any alarms, and remember to remain relaxed and lay still.

So that's my trouble with alarms. Perhaps I should try a different sound, something more gentle, even though what I'm currently using is far from loud and annoying like a typical buzzer would be. I will give it a few more tries with a different alarm, if a miracle happens, that'll be great, but if not, I'll just go back to teaching myself to wake up naturally and remember not to move, I find that much more appealing because of the lack of dependence on technology, which imo is ideal for good lucid dreaming.

Hi ! Congratulations for your attempts. I think you should not give up yet, as every night is an opportunity to adjust the settings.
I am stil finetuning the alarm settings to become as less disruptive as possible, which is probably the only problem of this approach. So, i encourage you and everyone who would like to try to prefere to fail by not hearing the alarm, than failing with a noisy alarm.

Then it becomes a matter of simply turning on your alarm at bedtime. It becomes effortless.
You can also map your rem periods and put an alarm right into it

Anyway, congratulations for your efforts and whish you great natural or artificial DEILDs
Natural DEILD should be the goal.

Originally Posted by VagalTone

Hi ! Congratulations for your attempts. I think you should not give up yet, as every night is an opportunity to adjust the settings.
I am stil finetuning the alarm settings to become as less disruptive as possible, which is probably the only problem of this approach. So, i encourage you and everyone who would like to try to prefere to fail by not hearing the alarm, than failing with a noisy alarm.

Then it becomes a matter of simply turning on your alarm at bedtime. It becomes effortless.
You can also map your rem periods and put an alarm right into it

Anyway, congratulations for your efforts and whish you great natural or artificial DEILDs
Natural DEILD should be the goal.

You're right, I'm not giving up yet. I found and set the most gentle alarm I could find, it's so relaxing I had to set it to last 15 seconds with a slightly higher than average volume to make sure I'll both hear it and not be jolted awake. If this doesn't work, I don't know what will..
I also think this alarm business is the only real problem, the only thing after this would be remembering not to move and stay relaxed, which should not be difficult.

Originally Posted by VagalTone

Hi ! Congratulations for your attempts. I think you should not give up yet, as every night is an opportunity to adjust the settings.
I am stil finetuning the alarm settings to become as less disruptive as possible, which is probably the only problem of this approach. So, i encourage you and everyone who would like to try to prefere to fail by not hearing the alarm, than failing with a noisy alarm.

Then it becomes a matter of simply turning on your alarm at bedtime. It becomes effortless.
You can also map your rem periods and put an alarm right into it

Anyway, congratulations for your efforts and whish you great natural or artificial DEILDs
Natural DEILD should be the goal.

I wonder about this (natural DEILD being the goal). I wonder if DEILD can actually truly ever arise naturally if your REM is completely "over." I know that REM is not set in concrete, and I know some like Sageous contend that it can be extended by properly managing your mental state in the dream to remain in the dream (sivason too gives us an example of maintaining a lucid dream across "brain reboot" periods).

I wonder because I've had so few DEILDs. It seemed to me that in order to have them, the conditions had to be PERFECT: awakening at just the right point in the sleep cycle.

Is DEILD only really possible on any regular sort of basis OTHER than dream interruption/abrupt wakening before the end of the natural REM (e.g., through excitement/shock, etc.)?

Maybe alarm-DEILD *is* the only sort of sustainable DEILD? Normally, I'd prefer one continuous long lucid dream without waking before the end of actual REM. DEILD seems a sort of a "bandaid" for failing to maintain the (previous) lucid dream…?

The great thing about alarm-DEILD, if you can tune the alarm to work for you, and if you can fall asleep again (BIG IF for me!) is that it gives you a greatly increased number of opportunities per night to get lucid.

Lately, however, I've been able to maintain sleep for beyond 8 hours, with decent awareness and even lucidity in the later hours. I may get motivated sufficiently to set up my remee for DEILD-only mode and try to find the perfect signal length/intensity for late morning. Hitting REM from bedtime with remee is pretty pointless for me since my sleep schedule is all over the place. I've tried over 100 times I think and only saw the lights in a dream twice (both times waking me up abruptly).

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Maybe alarm-DEILD *is* the only sort of sustainable DEILD?

I sure hope that's the case, because then I'd feel a lot less guilty about using alarms, haha.
But if alarms really turn out to be unideal, then we can only do what we do for pretty much all other techniques: build the skill. The skill of noticing micro-awakenings, staying still and going into a lucid.

Imo it's important to tame your sleep schedule. You can get lucky once in a while even with a bad schedule, but I think a stable one is vital for executing techniques properly and getting accurate results.
I don't know about the "bandaid" analogy, personally I see DEILD as a way to extend your lucid experience, no matter how good you are at maintaining a lucid dream, it will end at some point, and DEILD allows you to get right back into it, so why not, I think it's a great thing.

@FryingMan: Have you ever slept more than 9 hours ?

I think the easiest DEILDs, and also the craziest long chains, come after some extended period of sleep, when there's mostly REM

Besides, anything that causes REM rebound (like long WBTBs) should provide a good opportunity.

I have rarely DEILDed before 7 hours of sleep.

I have accumulated more than 9 hours of sleep on occasion during LD training, but it's fairly rare. Earlier, when I would force myself back to sleep on those nights where I had no recall out of stubbornness ("I'm NOT GETTING UP UNTIL I RECALL AT LEAST ONE DREAM!"), dreaming in those extended periods actually was less aware then in the time leading up to 8 hours, by a considerable margin. So I just stopped doing that because the dreaming was poor and I'd feel sluggish all day if I slept too much.

FYI, I was in bed about 12 hours last night. I don't know how much of that was sleep, but probably most of it was. I was awake in the morning for a while (an hour at most perhaps?) and got back to sleep with my "back to sleep kung fu", and actually had some decent dreams including a late FA which I caught [more or less handed to me, I was ejected from the bed, love when that happens] and turned into a short DILD marred by pure caveman mode. p.s. I took 2 mg of melatonin last night because I was so jazzed from a self-pep-talk before bed about lucidity . So I may have had some REM rebound going on this morning.

DEILD allows you to get right back into it , so why not, I think it's a great thing

It *IS* a great thing -- but I guess I'm questioning how often "natural" DEILD opportunities arise. Maybe I'm just too far from DEILD on my mind, not tuned in well enough to wakings, or my bedroom conditions are such that those opportunities just don't come up more than once in a blue moon. Maybe alarm DEILD is a great way to gain a lot of DEILD attempts under your belt and so improve and create more opportunities. But I'd still rather just stay in the dream longer .

I think I am making progress. This morning I managed to get to pre-exit symptoms, oh how I missed that eerie buzzing.. I think it's mostly a matter of getting adjusted to the alarm, so you don't get startled anymore and not forget what you're supposed to do as soon as you hear it, which I'm still having some trouble with, lol, but I do believe it's just a matter of time and making it a habit.

Also, after the buzzing stopped, I woke up in an unfamiliar bedroom, I did a breath RC, both with and without hands, could not breathe during both attempts.. This RC has failed me one too many times, I'm seriously considering replacing it with check-the-time RC. I always have my phone with me, so in a dream if I don't have it, that alone should be a sign that something's off. The breath RC did also work as it should many times, but now that I think about it, it was almost always when I was already lucid. When I was in doubt, there were quite a few times when it failed me. So I lost a lot of faith in it..

How's it going for you VagalTone?

I am still adjusting my settings but have achieved two short lucids last week. Have you done this daily mimi?

I see. Yep, been doing it daily for 6 days. Frankly, it felt like a lot longer, but I don't think it's nearly enough, I'm planning to try for at least 30 days. It's likely it gets easier over time.

mimi, I feel your pain re: the nose pinch! It worked beautifully for quite a while, but now seems to suggest I am awake more often than it suggests I am dreaming. I'm not sure why that is, but I have relegated it to a backup. I have a digital watch with a light now that I use.

I have also realized that any of these RCs can fail, and that it entirely depends on where your mind is when you do them. I have had my watch read the wrong time repeatedly, and decided that I must be going crazy, because I was obviously awake The fact that we are so profoundly at dis-ease concerning our state of reality should indicate we are dreaming, but that's not always a sure thing. Good luck with checking the time!

Originally Posted by ThreeCat

mimi, I feel your pain re: the nose pinch! It worked beautifully for quite a while, but now seems to suggest I am awake more often than it suggests I am dreaming. I'm not sure why that is, but I have relegated it to a backup. I have a digital watch with a light now that I use.

I have also realized that any of these RCs can fail, and that it entirely depends on where your mind is when you do them. I have had my watch read the wrong time repeatedly, and decided that I must be going crazy, because I was obviously awake The fact that we are so profoundly at dis-ease concerning our state of reality should indicate we are dreaming, but that's not always a sure thing. Good luck with checking the time!

It's a shame, nose RC used to be such a good RC for most people.
Indeed, your thinking has a lot to do with whether you'll accept the RC's suggestion that you're dreaming instead of making up excuses. Personally I'm kind of paranoid by nature, I firmly believe you can never be 100% sure that you're awake, so I almost never have trouble becoming lucid upon noticing oddities. I think in order to not just assume you're going crazy or your watch is broken, first you must accept, in waking life, the idea that no matter how real everything seems, it is still possible that you're dreaming. Truly accept it at a deeper level, not just "yeah I could be dreaming (but I'm pretty sure I'm not)" kind of thing.. if you know what I mean, not sure how much sense I'm making cause it's late and I'm tired, lol.

What i am slowly realizing is that novway will this be as much effective as with WBTB ! My dreams are significantly more vivid though and i feel the overall result is positive, as it gives me the oportunity to remember and recharge my mindset when i hear the alarm. I have my settings set now. Tonight begins officially my experiment ! Will updtate weekly here

My settings: alarm every 30 min at bedtime with the recording « i am dreaming», 3 times.

Woo-hoo--go, Vagaltone! God speed!

I just PM'd sivsason who seems to have mastered alarm-DEILD and asked him how long it took to get really good at it, he mentioned it took *3 years* of attempts before it became really consistent for him, and that before that he was already very proficient at DILD. So as always in this discipline, it pays to take the long view. You also have to be someone for whom falling back to sleep is quick/easy, which is probably why late morning DEILD is so rare for me, because I have to be in a perfect state where I'm dozing back to sleep easily.

Just because it took someone a very long time it doesn't mean it'll be the same for everyone. Plus, not everyone's asking for strict consistency. Personally I don't mind doing it, it doesn't tire me and it seems to increase my chances of DILD too, if nothing else.

Of course everyone's timing is different. My point is that "trying XYZ for 30 days" and concluding at the end of it that "it doesn't work for me" is not the right strategy with this discipline of lucid dreaming. Everyone (myself included) gets so tunnel-visioned on wanting immediate results. We need to set our sights for the long-term.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Of course everyone's timing is different. My point is that "trying XYZ for 30 days" and concluding at the end of it that "it doesn't work for me" is not the right strategy with this discipline of lucid dreaming. Everyone (myself included) gets so tunnel-visioned on wanting immediate results. We need to set our sights for the long-term.

I agree i might not be able to reach a conclusive result about alarm deild. I am just making a little poor experiment, but it might be better than many published studied in terms of duration, i have seen important studies using only 2 weeks of practice, check studies about Paul Tholey on Lucitopia. But i agree with you dude

Anyways, i am finding this technique very useful for at least improving dream recall. If you are dreaming, and then a record hits your sleep with " this is a dream" message there's a sudden redirection of attention to what you were dreaming. This is the result of having an alarm too loud or long of course.

Evidently so. I specifically said a minimum of 30 days, I'm planning to go well beyond that, unless things go drastically wrong, such as the technique making me wake up exhausted, which I doubt will happen.

I'm holding out great hope for this approach in the long run. sivason's is an inspiring example, he can get a bunch of short (short because interrupted by the alarm) lucids almost every time he does this. In the short run I need to train my brain to fall asleep again quickly.

Yay, finally it worked like magic this time. Heard the alarm, stayed still, began repeating the mantra in my head "I'm lucid dreaming.." over and over a few times, began buzzing a couple times, then next thing I know I'm in a vivid, long, lucid dream! I love this XD Not gonna touch those alarm settings anymore, from now on if something goes sour I'll know it must be either my fault or the sleep schedule or anything like that.

Originally Posted by mimihigurashi

Yay, finally it worked like magic this time. Heard the alarm, stayed still, began repeating the mantra in my head "I'm lucid dreaming.." over and over a few times, began buzzing a couple times, then next thing I know I'm in a vivid, long, lucid dream! I love this XD Not gonna touch those alarm settings anymore, from now on if something goes sour I'll know it must be either my fault or the sleep schedule or anything like that.

That is fabulous, congrats! How many hours of sleep approximately, out of curiosity, at the alarm time?

Originally Posted by FryingMan

That is fabulous, congrats! How many hours of sleep approximately, out of curiosity, at the alarm time?

Thanks! Hmm, how many hours, I'd say almost 6 hours, perhaps a bit less, from around 11-11:30 pm to 5-5:20 am (my alarm goes off every 20 minutes, the WILD happened on the second alarm I believe)

Great!
i wish you more loooong LD!

Every 20 minutes starting from bedtime, or starting when?

No, starting at 5 am until 8 am.