As you all know we have sleep cycles which are approximately an hour and a half long. This means if we randomly awoke at 4am then fell asleep again we would then briefly wake up at 5:30am at the end of our sleep cycle. The last 20 or so minutes of this sleep cycle would be REM sleep which is the time when dreams and phase experiences usually occur. We all know the wake back to bed technique followed by briefly filling your mind with the phase before going back to sleep can increase your changes of dream recall, dream consciousness and conscious awakenings. But there is a way to enhance the wake back to bed method. Before I explain this however lets look at the main problem with thinking about the phase before going to sleep after using the wake back to bed method.
The Problem with The Wake Back To Bed Technique:
Ok so its 4am and your alarm has just awoke you... Time to empty your bladder, return to bed and think about the phase for 2 minutes before you go back to sleep. By the time you are thinking about getting to sleep again it will be about 4:05am. When you do go to sleep you will most likely be at the beginning of your sleep cycle ready to go through the unconscious Non-REM sleep stages before your REM (dream) stage at the end of the cycle. Sadly your thoughts about the phase will be buried by your unconscious mind for about an hour before you finally start dreaming. An hour is a quite long time so when you do dream you're not extremely likely to recall those phase thoughts you had an hour ago although it still is possible. At about 5:35am you will awaken after REM sleep officially ending your sleep cycle ready to start another one.
Advantage of The Sleep Simulation Technique:
Now that we understand the problem with the normal wake back to bed method its time to introduce my sleep simulation technique. The advantage of using my technique is that you can think about the phase before going back to sleep yet skip a whole hour of unconscious Non-REM sleep. You can then go to sleep and rapidly enter the REM stage then wake 30 minutes later once REM is over. In other words you can sleep for just 30 minutes, have a phase experience and wake up to recall it. Its great to not have a massive loss of consciousness between thinking about the phase and dreaming. This method dramatically increases your chances of a phase experience through dream consciousness and even conscious awakenings so you can give Michael's indirect techniques a better go.
How to successfully Perform the Sleep Simulation Technique:
1. Wake up at 4am using an alarm and then briefly recall and write down your previous dream in dot-points if you remember it but spend no longer than 5 minutes doing this.
2. Use the bathroom to make sure your bladder won't disturb you during your attempt then return to bed and log the time on paper or digitally.
3. Lie in bed completely still with your eyes closed without moving a muscle (including your eyes). Think passively about the phase and your plan of action while you lie still but don't think too heavily or you won't successfully simulate Non-REM sleep.
4. After a while of lying still you may become itchy or have a strong urge to move or swallow. Ignore this until the feeling becomes extremely uncomfortable and once it does (or if you get extremely bored) quickly get up and log the time on paper or digitally. Typically you will reach this point after 30 - 60 minutes of lying still.
5. Lay down in bed and get as comfortable as possible. Attempt to fall asleep without forcing yourself to so you don't induce insomnia (you may feel like you are suffering from insomnia at this point yet you still should be able to get to sleep).
6. You will now briefly fall unconscious and quickly enter REM sleep as your body believes it has already gone through Non-REM sleep while you were lying still. Your chances of a phase experience through dream consciousness are likely at this point.
7. Awaken after your dream or phase experience and log the time. If you were successful the time should be in between 5:30am and 5:40am.
How do you know if you successfully simulated Non-REM during the 30 - 60 minute lie still phase?
It all depends on the time you awaken at the end of the sleep cycle you attempted the Sleep Simulation Technique with. So if you awaken at 5:35am you were totally successful. If your mind was too active however during the lie still period and you remained still for 45 minutes then that 45 minutes would not have counted as sleep. This would mean that once you got to sleep you would actually go through an entire 1.5 hour sleep cycle. So you will know that you have failed this technique if you wake up after dreaming at 6:15am instead of 5:35am. Check out the Visual Guide below to understand how to know if you were successful or not.
How to take part in this experiment:
Simply follow the instructions listed above exactly and post the following details in a reply to this topic. I have posted my own results of my attempt with this technique so you can see how to log your results below:
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Difficulty sleeping: Sometimes
Successful Sleep Simulation: Yes
Induced Phase Experience: Yes
Went to bed: 11:07pm
Awoke: 4:13am (naturally without alarm)
Started lying still/sleep simulation: 4:15am
Stopped lying still and attempted going to sleep: 5:00am
Awoke after REM: 5:33am
Additional Notes: I was very eager to have a phase experience and had a high level of confidence with my technique. I set an alarm for 4:15am but I awoke naturally at 4:13am then disabled the alarm and proceeded with the technique. I mentally repeated key words from my plan of action such as "unit 102" during the 45 minute lie still period and even visualized myself performing my goals. I also relaxed and concentrated on the feeling of my body lying in bed to prevent my mind from getting too active.
Lastly here is the phase experience that this technique induced: http://obe4u.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=6787#p6787
I wish everyone the best of luck with this technique and desperately hope that sleep simulation is not my own unique gift
