Lucid Dreaming: some pattern observations

Not sure if this will help anyone else, but hopefully it will. I’ve noticed a pattern that I use to fall asleep that helps with my lucid dreaming. Firstly, split your sleep up into polyphasic segments. To learn more about polyphasic sleep, check this site out – http://www.polyphasicsociety.com/

What I do is get a core sleep at night of about 4.5 hours and then I take a 1.5 nap early in the morning (4am), and if need be (in case of collected REM debt) another 1.5 nap a little later (8am). You will obviously need to work this out to suit your daily schedule, but the main points are to get core sleep, get up for a couple hours and then get the 1.5 hour nap. Its the nap where you will experience the lucid dreaming, and is best done in the morning.

Something else I noticed is the actual pattern that I use to fall asleep. If I follow it to the tee then I am guaranteed to have lucidity. During the period I am up I find that reading is the best thing to do. At some point I start to hear noises and voices which is that hypnagogic state just before you fall into delta sleep. That’s my cue to go to bed.

When I lie down I lie on my left side and stretch my body out so it is straight, no bent back or legs. Since working toward lucid dreaming I have found I rarely fall asleep on my side anymore, but I do get into a good theta phase. When I start to see images and hear noises and voices again, I turn over onto my right side. During the turning, I need to stretch, and it when that happens I know I am going to be lucid. On right side I then fall asleep, although there is one other odd thing that happens just before that, its kind of like a pressure that pushes down on my head and throat, and although I can still breath absolutely fine, it feels like my breathing gets shallow by force. Kind of odd, but then I fall asleep.

So, if you can find your own pattern, you are A for Away.