SLEEP=LUCID: i know its obvious but please read

Just today i had my second ever lucid dream between 2:30 and 3:30pm and it was also my first ever succesfull use of proper induction technique (i used WILD). I have been extremely stressed lately and thought that the stress may be why i was having such a hard time getting lucid dreams and actually my dream recall had gone down entirely. Last night i slept for near 10 hours and then took my nap for an hour. My dream recal for last night was okay and my dream recal for the nap was amazing, my stress levels were no different. I now realize that its all about getting good restful sleep, if you get the right amount of sleep its much easier to enter a dream and to become lucid. :grin:

Indeed pretty obvious. The less you sleep the less time spent in REM-sleep (which occurs mostly in the 2nd half of the night) and the shorter the dreams are as well. So naturally you will have less dream recall and less time to get lucid in. I had a habit of sleeping only 5 hours per night. Getting into Lucid dreaming was a good way for me to lose that bad habit (both physically and mentally it wears you down if you always sleep only 5 hours).

I agree. That’s why now I try to sleep 8 hours minimum. When I do this I’ll have at least 1 LD daily… if I sleep like 5 hours It gets pretty tough and It’s about the time I’m basically starting to dream.

yeah this post is mostly for the beginners who are having a rough time. I started out a few weeks back and from the first night i was doing great but my dream recall and everything almost went away entirely and it was very frustrating. I figured this was my problem by process of elimination today and noticed that no one really addresses the fact that if you arent getting a full 8 hours of sleep then lucid dreaming will be damn hard so i thought i would post this.

Yeah, this is obvious. But it’s good to be reminded because sometimes people forget when they loose motivation or something… The basics are what you build upon, and what you posted about is crucial to practicing lucid dreaming.

… Or just take naps and enter lucids pretty much instantly.

I agree.

When I sleep for more than 8 hours, I am able to remember even 4 dreams a night. But last few days I have been sleeping for only 6 hours and I don’t remember any. What is more, all my lucid dreams occurred when I didn’t have to go to work and I was able to sleep 8 to 10 hours.

So good long sleep is crucial :wink:

Same, I usually need at least 5 or 6 hours before going back to sleep for me to have an LD. Preferably I’d need at least 8 hours of sleep to ensure that I’ll have an LD in the last hour or two, but that would require me to go to bed at 20:00 and I can’t always do so… ;( So usually, I have my LDs during naps or weekends when I end up sleeping at least 10 hours, sometimes 14 (like yesterday, slept 14 hours since classes were canceled; no LD though, but I do remember doing an RC in one of the dreams, but I don’t remember anything else).

hmm i wondered for quite some time why my DR is so bad , most of the time i wake up and i dont remember anything just blackness.
So im gonna try to get that 8 hours of sleep everyday would be good for my health to :smile:

On topic here’s everything I’ve read about sleep schedule and it’s benefits on dream recall and lucid dreams. You want to have a good sleep schedule which doesn’t only mean an entire 8 hours of sleep. You also want to go to bed at around 9pm or even 11. Reason being rem sleep is most common for people at around 2-4 am. Something to do with the lunar cycle or whatever I’m sure. You also want to spend more time in the sun. That helps wear your body out giving you better sleep. The most important thing is when you go to sleep,if your drunk, kiss any dreams you may have goodbye, or at least any lucidity. Alcohol consumption makes the process more difficult.

Another thing that makes it more difficult is watching tv. When you watch tv your brain Sortve lets down its guard allowing itself to just absorb information like a sponge with no questioning. So watching tv before bed reduces your chances of having a lucid dream because your brain will just take the dream in without questioning it’s reality or at least not as much. It’s the same thing if your using any substances that my name refers to. I know there are probably minors present and I am not totally clear about forum rules so I try not to say it in clear sight but it’s apparent that it has the same affects as watching tv before bed does. So if you like to partake in those activities. try to avoid doing them late at night.

Hope this helps you to better improve your lucid dreaming.

Does using electronics (computers, tv,etc) right before sleeping prevent you from remembering dreams well? My health teacher told us that if we want a good sleep, we needed to stay away from them at least 2 hour before sleeping (although she never said anything about dreams, so i just hypothesized that it will be harder to remember dreams).