Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Lucid Dreaming

I've been having intense -- or intensely memorable -- dreams when taking naps. Not so much with core sleep; I wake up like I've been woken from the dead and have little memory of falling asleep or dreaming anything. I have to search my mind to remember when I slept and why I'm getting up. This was also typical of my monophasic sleep when I got less than 8 hours, so it seems to be about the same thing.

I often begin to dream as I'm falling asleep, which is something that was always typical of my naps and sleep entered into while being sleep-deprived or utmostly tired. I thought this was a sign of entering directly into REM sleep, but have learned that this might not be the case, as REM does not necessarily equal dreaming, and I may be experiencing hypnagogia. These do not seem to be the same as a traditional dream entered into with REM or NREM4 sleep, but they have a free-flowing dream-like quality.

During my morning nap today, I experienced one of the first lucid dreams I'd had in a while. I often had lucid dreams or dreamed of waking from a dream and doing things a few years ago, when I did free-running sleep at odd times and took afternoon and evening naps. With the dream this morning, I fell asleep very tired and already feeling half-asleep, and with the intention of having a lucid dream. I entered into a dream shortly thereafter, knew that I was dreaming, and was then able to control what I was seeing and feeling. I also remember feeling that I had control over my body and my ability to wake, as opposed to feeling sleep paralysis, so I made a conscious effort to not move too much or open my eyes or otherwise go down the path of accidentally waking. It worked quite well, and I woke up easily and was not startled when my alarm went off. I was still pretty tired and could have gone back to sleep, but I otherwise felt well.

I realize I'm blogging quite a bit. There are a couple of reasons for that: 1) I feel like I have a lot to record in new ideas and experiences and evaluations of those experiences, and I have a subject that lends itself to frequent, short records of this, 2) I hope that my experiences might be interesting or useful to others, especially my friend who is reading this blog and is also interested in polyphasic sleep (although cautioning me about experimenting with sleep in general), and 3) I find blogging to be very therapeutic when I'm feeling stressed, as I am lately. I also hope that I can accumulate this material into a useful record for myself, to monitor my progress and better keep track of what works, what doesn't, and my conclusions or questions about it all.

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