There was an interesting conversation about the sleepcycle and timing in the Telegram. I think it's worth sharing here. There're already posts about data collection, using the Daniels tracker and ideas about building a REM detection app. I didn't know where to put this, as it's all linked. This is about Sleep cycle in general so made a new post. Please share if you like what you found about your sleepcycle. What factors come into play and how to use it with the standard graph? What if you've managed collecing some data, how to interpret and use it in your advantage? What's best to aim for a WBTB?
Nathan Kelly
Damn it, my lucidity attempts last night were completely ruined by a natural awakening I had an hour before my WBTB alarm, and then I couldn't get back to sleep for well over an hour, maybe closer to 2 hours
This is my main issue at the moment, if I could get the timings right I'd be golden, but I keep waking up before my alarms and not being able to get back to sleep
The Lucid Guide
Nathan Kelly This is one of the core pillars, of the three pillars of lucidity, timing. The most important thing you can do here is to keep regular sleep and wake times. The mind-body wants to maintain a somewhat stable sleep cycle but we make it difficult for it with our varied and complex lives (the price of living in an unpredictable universe!). Start recording the timings of your natural awakenings (but record them as "hours after you went to bed" and not the time showing on the clock, and if they were the result of the end of an REM period or not. Then when you have enough data to work with you can discover certain patterns, such as (this is only an example) often waking from REM at 6 1/2 hours into sleep. Then you can start to set alarms to wake yourself 20 minutes prior to this, which should equate to the start of the REM cycle. This is why I am so insistent on data collection and experimentation. It doesn't matter if the psychology pillar is firm if body chemistry and timing are unpredictable. We must have a grasp on all the variables that are within our control. Even when we master all three pillars we still live in a universe with variables that are unknown and out of our control, so we must understand that this is a moving target and we'll not always hit.
Mike England The Lucid Guide Thankyou Daniel I will do that I’ve been jotting times not hours since sleep just a quick question 90 minutes a natural cycle so if your natural awakening at 90 minutes you can wake 30 mins before is that correct And Thankyou again
Nathan Kelly
Thank you @LucidGuide! I've already been doing what you said, but it's nice to know I'm doing things right. I've managed to find out that I typically wake up around 5.5 hours, so I've been setting my WBTB alarms 5 hours after sleep, and that's been working really well for me. But then every once in a while, life throws a curveball and I wake up an hour or so before my alarm, having just finished REM, and then can't get back to sleep which effectively ruins my WBTB attempt. But I'll definitely be keeping data about these awakenings to try and find out why they happen :)
The Lucid Guide Mike EnglandThe 90 minute sleep cycle length is a human invention, it's a tidy simple answer to something that is natural and messy. In the lab it's soon very apparent that individual's cycle lengths can deviate from this quite a lot, as much as 20 minutes in either direction! so your cycle might be 70 minutes, it might be 110 minutes, or anything in between. This is one of the issues with the twaddle merchants, they read one book or website and share these approximations as if they are hard facts. At best these things are very rough roadmaps.
The Lucid Guide
@mikee217 and Nathan Yes, it can be quite frustrating. We need to be supple and flexible on this path. This is where we can learn from Taoist, Zen and Buddhist practices, not in a woo way but from their original practical value. This universe is deeply chaotic so to survive and adapt we must be flexible. Just like the branches of a tree, those that bend will not break, those that are rigid will snap. Dreams are cheeky unpredictable little monkeys that are going to jump all over us, we have to be ready to adapt to them :)