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.