Lucid Dreaming and OBE Discussion Board

Hi and welcome!

It seems that your schedule is on your mind and the worry may prevent you from effectively using the deferred indirect method.

One question.  Do you get any days or time off work during the week?  It is wise to start off by practising when you don't have to get up early the following day.  Have a more relaxed approach and perhaps try twice a week.  We'll see what Michael has to say about this...

Another way to enter the phase (which may be best suited for you while you endure a busy schedule) would be to become aware that you are dreaming.  This would be taking advantage of your sleep.  To increase the likelihood of dream consciousness you need a dream journal in order to familiarise yourself with dream patterns and cues and reality checks must be made on a regular basis.

Check out the "Lucid Dreaming" section in this website and do revise SOBT.  Do take heed of the deferred and indirect method.  Indirect techniques will help you to reenter the phase if you foul from a dream-initiated lucid dream.

What is your schedule.  Would you be willing to share the details with us?

Hmmm...

You could always satiate that hunger for the phase by practising the dream-consciousness method during the week and then on Sundays you could work on indirect techniques.  What do you reckon?

By the way, don't let a few failures put you off if you employ the deferred method even when you have work the following day.  Sometimes I go to bed at 1am and wake up just before 5am to keep active before going back to bed.  Then I enter the phase.  It still works.

The main thing is that you maintain confidence in that you will catch the right opportunity to enter the phase and will succeed.  Sometimes I seem to enter the state from wakefulness and there is no perceived lapse in consciousness.

But then again I found what works for me.  Here's something you might want to consider: sometimes I find that I enter the phase mostly when I'm not trying.  There is also such a thing as trying too hard and breaks can be handy.

Try to get at least five hours of sleep before an attempt.  Any chance that you might be able to go to bed at 11pm and wake up at 4.30am or 5am?

I tend to do this and most of the time, when I go back down I don't even aim to fall asleep.  I sort of meditate by focusing on one thing in my mind.  My mind will wander several times but every time I remember to bring it back to the focus.  Before I know it, I experience pre-phase sensations like vibrations, sounds or images...

What do you say?

Yes.  No stress.  Take a relaxed approach.

And you are right.  Get about 5-6 hours sleep and then get up.  Stay active for about 15-20 minutes (or up long enough to make sure that you are not too tired when you go back to bed and also not too alert that you will have trouble relaxing).

What happens is that, in the early hours of the morning (after you have slept), the REM stage is more frequent.  The phase is more likely to occur in REM.  After interrupting one of the last sleep cycles, your brain will be craving for REM and it will try to get it at the slightest opportunity.

Rather than taking around 90 minutes to get into REM like it tends to do at the beginning of the night and prior to any sleep, the brain will take less than ten minutes after having cycled through sleep.  this is why it is easier to enter the phase after sleeping.  It will also be easier for you to relax your body and mind after having slept.

What happens is that, once you start relaxing and maintaining your awareness, the brain will be working towards REM and the body is likely to quickly "shut down" (muscle atonia/ignoring sensory input from the physical world and everything else) before the mind has a chance to fall asleep with it.

In a way, you can say that entering the phase this way is "falling asleep consciously".  Sometimes lapses in consciousness can occur before you find yourself in the phase but in my case I often seem to retain awareness throughout and then separate.

Even if you fall asleep doing this, the chances of regaining consciousness in the phase are great because on the next awakening you can employ indirect techniques and it will be simpler and quicker than the indirect method sounds on paper.