Had a weird lucid experience last night

Quest for Lucidity
1

Hi,

Im Neil a lapsed lucid dreamer who has been meaning to get back into it for ages. I am at univesity studing film production. I heard about a research project that required people to write a dream joural and throught it would be a great motivation to start trying to LD again.

Last night I watched (most of) the film Paprika before sleeping, we were given a list of dream related films to watch before sleeping to see if they influenced your dreams. I got really tired and turned it off (will watch the rest this evening). I checked my clock before going to bed and it was around 22:30 (possibly later). I thought about dreaming and remebering my dreams while falling asleep.

The next think I know I was in a lucid dream. I was telling an old friend that ‘we are dreaming’. I managed to increase the vividess by spinning, but I dont think I was 100% lucid. I had fun flying around in the dream (dream flying is usually hard for me but last night it was easy) and even tried to act out a part in the film Paprika where she flies from up hight in the sky very quickly towards earth (the memories hazy, but I think I did it).

I woke up assuming it was hours after I had gone to sleep. I checked my phone and was amazed to see it was only 23:22. I aways thought you had to have slept awhile to be able to dream, something about REM sleep. Looking at this site I guess it may be possible I had some kind of accidental Wake Induced Lucid Dream.

So decided to sign up to see if anyone had any ideas about why I had a LD at such an unusual time. Anyone got a theory?

Thanks in advance.

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From what you’ve posted, you were asleep for 82 minutes. A natural sleep cycle ending with some amount of REM sleep is approximately 90 minutes, so it’s very possible you were in REM sleep. It’s also possible that you encountered REM rebound due to university making your sleep schedule abnormal. Lastly, remember that you dream both during and outside of REM sleep, albeit more vividly in REM; you aren’t required to be in REM sleep to lucid dream, although it does make things easier.

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Thanks for the quick reply Thorn. I think I was actually asleep for a little under an hour (not that it really matters). My sleep schedule has been pretty erratic lately, due to deadlines and stuff. What’s REM rebound?? Sounds interesting.

TBH I was just supprised that I had an LD so quicly after trying again (I’ve been writing a dream journal for 2 days since I started again) and that it was more vivd that any LD I’ve had before.