This is my first post because it’s perhaps the first time I’ve felt useful. But anyway, I’ve been obsessing over lucid dreaming for about a month, to the point where I (until recently) developed some kind of insomnia; I just couldn’t get myself to sleep. Now the reason I’m sharing this, is because I’d have loved someone to tell me this a few weeks ago. I’ve developed a training schedule that requires me, nearly every morning to be awoken prematurely by my phone alarm.
Having stopped doing that, I know realise my problems with sleep were born out of this knowledge that I had to be asleep at a certain time, and wake up a certain time. So if you’re having real trouble sleeping; stop forcing yourself to sleep at certain times and so on; just forget entirely about REM cycles. I actually found that I’ve started to wake up naturally after dreams, with a little auto-suggestion before sleeping.
Sorry if I’ve just stated the blinding obvious but I didn’t work this out earlier so I thought I’d share.
I can relate with you a 100%! I recently graduated from high school so my sleeping cycle has been completely destroyed…every night I sleep at different times because I just can’t fall asleep. I will try what you told me because I’ve been trying to fix my sleeping habit (I usually sleep around 4-5 a.m. recently 6-7 a.m ) so I can enjoy my mornings and afternoons!
That’s what I’m saying constantly. If you really don’t need an alarm, wake up using auto suggestions. They are more natural then the bloody alarm and you will benefit from that. No stress for the body or the mind!
I have the same sort of insomnia- I think “I’ve got to be up by 5:00 so I need to fall asleep right now if I don’t want to be exhausted” but then I keep checking the clock and before I know it it’s like the alarm clock is going off and I’m not sure if I ever slept or was just dozing. When I’m thinking about lucid dreaming especially it’s worse because I’m excited…but how do you guys use autosuggestion? I mean, I feel like that would stress me out more because it seems less reliable, but then maybe it isn’t. How close can you get to the time you need to be up?
Auto suggestion is very powerful technique but it needs to be learned as everything else. So even if you do use auto suggestions use alarm too, just to be safe.
The thing with auto suggestions is that you say them until you think you made an impression. Until you certain that you made confirmation to yourself. Some prefer to say auto suggestions until they fall asleep. I don’t see that very much useful specially at the bed time, maybe when doing WBTB because you could fall asleep much easier and quicker, although in you situation it’s better to say it just a few times with meaning…
) so I can enjoy my mornings and afternoons!