The importance of REM...

Hi everyone, lately I’ve been practicing WBTB and somehow I created this biological clock that wakes me up just before REM starts, it has become part of my sleep-cycle to wake up for 5 minutes.
So last night I decided to get out of bed and stay up for 45 minutes, listening to music and eating half a bar of chocolate.
When I got back in bed I noticed that I was to awake to sleep again, so for the rest of the night (4 hours) I relaxed but didn’t even come close to sleeping.
I experienced 0 dreams yet I’m completly rested and now that it’s nearly midday I notice how I feel slightly demotivated and maybe even depressed.
I have trouble remembering what I did 10 minutes ago, but it’s NOT sleep-deprivation I’m sure.

A one off instance of having next to no sleep seems to have an unusual effect on the body for me. The day immediately following it I tend to feel surprisingly good. Reaction times and coordination, etc, will still take a hit. It’s not until the day after that you typically feel extremely drowsy and groggy. Of course mood effects are inevitable. It’s possible it acts as something of an amplifier for emotions. You may feel disappointed that you didn’t succeed with your LD plans and the lack of sleep amplified that.

You could try a much shorter time for your WBTB, the time isn’t strictly hard and fast. Some who fall asleep quickly will benefit from it, others who don’t may find it eliminates their ability to get back to sleep. I’d also suggest that if you can’t go back to sleep within an hour of trying, that you do something for 20 mins or so forgetting about sleep, then try going back to it. I’ve found that otherwise you can get caught into thinking about things and that stops you getting back to sleep. We can think about things for hours on end without any other input. Practising Meditation can help to teach you how to quiet the mind when you are in that state, but failing that, just stopping for a bit usually worked for me. It acts a bit like a mental reset button, breaking the thought pattern.

Thanks for the reply.
If I ever lay awake again I will do what you say.
It’s not that I was dissapointed that I didn’t have any LD, it felt like the previous day wasn’t ended properly. I know it’s weird but that’s how it felt.