Can't Sleep After Waking Up

Maybe this topic has already been written, but I really need help. My first lucid dreams happened when I accidentally woke up in the middle of the night and then fall asleep after an hour. I know this is a well known technique, I just don't remember the name. So I tried the same method again, but this time with a timer so it could wake me up. I tried the timer technique and after I woke up in the middle of the night and set up a timer, I couldn't fall back asleep. I was awake for about 3 hours. Maybe the timers stresses me up, so I can't relax enough to sleep. Can someone please tell how can I relax enough to fall back asleep? Should I be more tired before doing this technique? During the 1 hour (more or less) wake time what is the best thing to do and what activities should I avoid doing?

My English is not the best, I know.

I guess you were thinking about the timer and you couldn't fall asleep, yes. A question: do you accidentally wake up often or rarely?

Yes, I was stressful because of the timer. I tried this technique before without the timer and I slept fine. That's why I am trying to find a way to sleep faster, relax and to get myself more tired. I rarely wake myself up in the middle of the night and if I do wake up it is just because I'm thirsty or I need to pee. Only when I had my first lucid dreams I woke myself for no reason and stayed awake for an hour (even though I wanted to sleep).

You should find your most comfortable position and lie there, do not move, and try not to think of something in particular. Just let your mind wander on its own. Don't think of stuff, but if stuff comes to your mind, just let it wander but not thinking about them. Even if it takes time. It's kinda like meditation. It's what i do and it works. I have WILDs this way.

TNX :D So you do this when you go back to sleep? How long do you wait till you go back to sleep and what are you doing in that time? I just don't want to do any mistakes next time I try this technique

Ok, so, i wake up naturally everyday at the middle of the night, so i don't need alarm clocks. When i wake up, i do one of this 2 techniques: B-MILD: this is the MILD technique but coordinated with breathing. I say a mantra like (breath in) "I'm dreaming..." (breath out) "... and i'm flying." for some minutes. And i fall asleep with that in mind. Sometimes this works and i get lucid in a dream doing what i intended to do. WILD: I lay on my 2nd most comfortable position (on my side). If i do it on my most uncomfortable position, i don't sleep. The most comfortable, i fall asleep. So, i just stay still and instead of thinking of something i try to think of nothing. I just lie there, just being aware, keeping all my thoughts off, or just let them wander my mind without actually thinking about them. This gets me the so called dreamlets or hipnagogic imagery and then the usual vibrations and, when i least expect it, i pop into a dream. With this technique it can het you a good LD in 20 minutes or even 1 hour. Last night it took me 1 hour and it works only if i had like 7 hours of sleep. I have one all saturday mornings.

Thank you for helping me and shearing your techniques :D

Glad to help. Then tell me if that worked for you.

So I tried this week again the timer method. I got up at 3 am and was awake for only 10 minutes, then I went back to bed. I still didn't sleep for quite some time, but I was very tired and I even got a sleep paralysis without waking up (just by lying on the side). Maybe if I wouldn't move, I would astral project. I think I was really close. So after an hour I fell asleep and I had lucid dreams. The dreams were quite long and vivid, best LD so far. But I don't remember being awaken by the timer. Maybe I don't even need it for LD. Later, when I woke up I turned off the timer and went back to sleep.

Next time I will probably do the same. Get up, turn on the timer, empty my bladder and go back to sleep. I will also try the same thing, just without the timer and see if the timer is very important for me or not, because I don't remember it waking me up.

Cool. Glad to read your improvement.

I tried to wake up, go to the bathroom and back to bed with a timer. It doesn't work. You need to be awake for at least 10 minutes. Just for someone who is trying the same method as I do.

This can be tricky for people like me who wake up quickly. In the beginning of my LD training I quickly discovered that nighttime techniques like MILD and SSILD really woke me up and I could lie awake for hours trying to get back to sleep. Simply recording dreams didn't have this effect on me (at that time).

I since have taught myself to successfully get back to sleep a high percentage of the time, as long as I'm still tired (and sometimes even when I'm not!).

The key things to realize are:

you must take ownership of the issue and resolve to fix it. You can get advice from others/websites/etc but you must figure out what works for you.have a regular sleep scheduleget regular exercise dailydo NOT get anxious about not sleeping, this guarantees a vicious cycle of insomniado not "try to sleep," this keeps you awake. Trust your body, if it still needs sleep, it will sleep again if you can relax and quiet your mind and body enoughFocus only on relaxing entirely: you mind and body. Pay attention to typical tension holding places: the jaw, and some sneaky ones, like the eyes.You can lightly concentrate on something simple, like counting backwards to 1 from 20, count down one number for each breath. But this sometimes is enough to keep me stimulated and awake, and at those times I drop the counting. What I do find this useful for is "lowering" the level of mental activity, if I'm thinking about waking life stuff, replacing those thoughts with the count. And then when you're mentally quiet enough, drop the count and just keep relaxing and drifting. If you body needs more sleep, you WILL sleep.This takes a lot of practice, but it is well worth it. The study of lucid dreaming is really all about how you sleep, at its most basic! So effort expended on learning to fall back to sleep will be rewarded many times in your LD lifetime.

Don't use a timer. Just settle your mind and relax...