Sleep

Links

Science of Sleep
Dream Views
The Lucidity Institute (archive.org)
Sleep Paralysis

Sleeping Strategy

1. Set a schedule, go to bed and wake up at the same time each day.
2. Exercise 20 to 30 minutes a day but no later than a few hours before going to bed.
3. Avoid caffeine and nicotine late in the day and alcoholic drinks before bed.
4. Relax before bed, try a warm bath, reading, or another relaxing routine.
5. Create a room for sleep, avoid bright lights and loud sounds, keep the room at a comfortable temperature, and don’t watch TV or have a computer in your bedroom.
6. Don’t lie in bed awake. If you can’t get to sleep, do something else, like reading or listening to music, until you feel tired.

The 4 Stages of Sleep

N1

The changeover from wakefulness to sleep. During this short period (lasting several minutes) of relatively light sleep, your heartbeat, breathing, and eye movements slow, and your muscles relax with occasional twitches. Your brain waves begin to slow from their daytime wakefulness patterns.

N2

A period of light sleep before you enter deeper sleep. Your heartbeat and breathing slow, and muscles relax even further. Your body temperature drops and eye movements stop. Brain wave activity slows but is marked by brief bursts of electrical activity. You spend more of your repeated sleep cycles in stage 2 sleep than in other sleep stages.

N3

The period of deep sleep that you need to feel refreshed in the morning. It occurs in longer periods during the first half of the night. Your heartbeat and breathing slow to their lowest levels during sleep. Your muscles are relaxed and it may be difficult to awaken you. Brain waves become even slower.

REM Sleep

Occurs about 90 minutes after falling asleep. Your eyes move rapidly from side to side behind closed eyelids. Mixed frequency brain wave activity becomes closer to that seen in wakefulness. Your breathing becomes faster and irregular, and your heart rate and blood pressure increase to near waking levels. Most of your dreaming occurs during REM sleep, although some can also occur in non-REM sleep. Your arm and leg muscles become temporarily paralyzed, which prevents you from acting out your dreams. As you age, you sleep less of your time in REM sleep. Memory consolidation most likely requires both non-REM and REM sleep.

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Lucid Dreaming

A lucid dream is a type of dream in which the dreamer becomes aware that they are dreaming. During a lucid dream, the dreamer may gain some amount of control over the dream characters, narrative, or environment; however, this is not actually necessary for a dream to be described as lucid.

It is a learned/learnable skill that can be cultivated and improved.

Reality Check

awareness: do you "know" anything that's impossible for you to know?
action: is anybody (yourself included) doing anything that's impossible?
form: is anything/anyone taking an impossible form?
context: are you somewhere/somewhen that's impossible?

Lexicon

diurnation: the habit/condition of sleeping during the day
hypnagogia: the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep, characterized by dreamlike auditory/visual/tactile sensations when half-awake
hypnopompia: the state of consciousness leading out of sleep
morphean: of pertaining to, or producing sleep
oneiric: of, pertaining to, or suggestive of dreams; dreamlike
sleep paralysis: a state, during waking/falling asleep, in which one is conscious but temporarily unable to move/speak
somnolescent: drowsy, sleepy, having an inclination to sleep

Lucid Dreaming

dream journal: any medium where you preserve dreams you remember
reality check: a test to establish whether you are in a dream or waking life, actively done during the day in hopes that the habit will continue within dreams
false awakening: dreaming that you woke up, only to (usually) either actually wake or have another dream of waking up from the previous dreams
MILD: (Mnemonically Induced Lucid Dream) technique where you tell yourself as you are in bed ready to sleep that you are going to become lucid when you dream, then visualizing yourself in a dream becoming lucid, repeated until you fall asleep
WILD: (Wake-Induced Lucid Dream) technique where you maintain consciousness while your body falls asleep
FILD: (Finger-Induced Lucid Dream) technique using subtle finger movements as you fall asleep
SSILD: (Sense-Induced Lucid Dream) technique where you use awareness of your senses as you cycle through them while falling asleep

Art

Ludens

!Yume Nikki by Kikiyama (Windows/Steam/Web)
LSD: Dream Emulator by Asmik Ace Entertainment (PS1)

Audio

Albums

Loveless by My Bloody Valentine (Youtube)
Sleep Well! by The Friendly Moon (Bandcamp)

Visual

Graphics

The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli (Wikimedia)

Films

Stay (2005) directed by Marc Forster