How To Optimize Your Brain Chemistry For More Lucid Dreams

A guest article by Nick Newport of Lucidology.com

Here in Lucidology 101 you'll find out how to optimize your brain chemistry for more lucid dreams - and how to use the sun to avoid the #1 mistake in OBEs.

Plus... The one OBE induction method I'd use if I wasn't allowed to use any others.

The #1 Biggest Mistake Almost Everyone Makes!

Here's a mistake I see almost EVERYBODY make. This is not their fault since most of the books on OBEs are actually telling them to make this mistake.

People often ask for advice on forums about how to induce OBEs. The posts often start out saying: "Last night I went to bed to do an OBE."

Here they've actually already made the cardinal OBE mistake. The mistake is: Don't do your OBE attempts at night (like most books say).

Instead do them in the early morning!!!

Optimal Brain Chemistry is All About Timing

Optimal OBE brain chemistry is all about timing and your body's circadian rhythm. I've had literally thousands of OBEs in the early morning. I've had fewer than ten at night... The two main chemicals involved are called serotonin and melatonin:

Serotonin is Your 'On' Switch - Serotonin is your 'on' switch and helps you stay alert and lucid. It's a feel-good neurotransmitter which helps your brain's neurons transmit signals more freely.

Melatonin is Your 'Off' Switch - Your body uses serotonin to make melatonin which is your 'off' switch and helps you relax. It tells your body to shut down for sleep and begin repairing. Melatonin stimulates the immune system. It's also associated with anti-aging and the human growth hormone and is an antioxidant.

The Melatonin Circadian Rhythm

Serotonin is made when your body is exposed to light. Melatonin is made from serotonin at night in the dark. Melatonin breaks down under light. This creates the melatonin circadian rhythm.

At night time you have very little melatonin. It starts increasing around dusk and peaks around 2-4am. It then breaks down again at dawn.

The Cortisol Circadian Rhythm

The other secret ingredient is the 'fight or flight' hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is depleted throughout the day but then surges back in the early morning in preparation to wake you up. The interplay between cortisol and melatonin creates THE ideal sweet spot for OBEs in the early morning.

The Circadian Sweet Spot:
4-5:30am

This sweet spot is between around 4am and 5:30am. During the sweet spot relaxation is easy because of relatively high melatonin levels and you've been relaxed for several hours during sleep. Alertness is easy because cortisol brings with it a rush of two other stimulants called epinephrine and norepinephrin. These stimulants are meant to help wake you up but you can use them for dream alertness instead.

The Worst Time For OBEs

Bedtime is the single worst time of all for OBEs because your brain chemistry is geared for the opposite of lucidity at that point. Instead it's geared for zonking out which is what always happens in the questions I see in forums.

At bedtime you're low on cortisol and melatonin. By the time you've relaxed enough to fall asleep your cortisol levels are so low you have virtually no chance of regaining lucidity.

Wake Back To Bed (WBTB)

So that's the wrong way to do it. Here's the right way to do it. In fact if there was only one method I could use, this is the one. It's called Wake Back To Bed and was invented by former NASA engineer Dr Albert Taylor. He's also the author of an excellent book called Soul Traveler: A Guide to Out of Body Experiences and The Wonders Beyond which I definitely recommend.

How to Use The Circadian Sweet Spot

Here's how Wake Back To Bed works. Get up in the early morning during the OBE sweet spot, stay awake for a period of time then go back to sleep. Use the sleep paralysis methods we covered earlier and you'll likely have spontaneous OBEs and lucid dreams. We'll use Wake Back To Bed as the foundation for an even more advanced induction later on called the timer method.

Why Wake Back To Bed Rocks The Hizzouse

The reason Wake Back To Bed works so well is because of the fundamental theorem of sleep paralysis. If you wake up and fall asleep in the early morning you're pretty much begging for sleep paralysis and spontaneous lucid dreams.

In fact, before I knew anything about OBEs I used to have waking paralysis episodes all the time and didn't know why. It was really irritating to wake up and not be able to move. I later realized it was because I was not sleeping well and was waking up for a few minutes and then going back to sleep without moving.

That caused the paralysis and it's the basis for pretty much all our other induction tricks. So how do you improve on Wake Back To Bed? The immediate answer is to tweak the amount of time you stay awake before going to sleep again.

Tweaking The Time You Stay Up: Two Options

Option 1: WBTB + No Movement - The first is to stay up a short period. For this strategy you wake up, don't move at all (don't even move your eyes), fall back to sleep and keep awareness on your body for the sleep paralysis wave to come.

Option 2: WBTB + Get up in Between - The second strategy is the long period. You wake up, get up, stay up for a while, then go back to bed.

Both approaches work well but which should you use?

Going right back to sleep without moving makes it very easy to fall asleep again. However it's very likely that you'll fall completely asleep and not become lucid. Even so this is the method I use most because it requires no planning or effort.

With option 2 where you get up from bed for a while, it's harder to fall asleep again. However it is very likely that you will become lucid if you do sleep. Research by Dr Stephen LaBerge has shown getting up for an hour before going back to bed significantly increases lucidity.

My personal experience and most of the people I've advised suggests 45 minutes works a slightly better than an hour. Several people who were not able to have success by staying up for an hour were able to have OBEs simply by changing the wakefulness period to 45 minutes. Waiting until you start yawning again is a good rule of thumb.

Daytime Sunlight Increases OBEs

The amount of sun you get has a giant impact on your ability to have OBEs because your body needs sun in order to make serotonin. Get at least an hour of outside sunlight at day break and sundown. Those are the best times to get sunlight without risk of a sunburn because the sun is so low in the sky.

One Hour of Gradual Darkness Before Bed Slays Insomnia

At night, make sure to turn the lights down at least an hour or so before going to bed. The body is not designed for the abrupt light to dark change that you get with artificial lighting. By turning the lights down gradually, you'll simulate sunset and greatly reduce and chance of insomnia.

TV Before Bed Wrecks OBE Inductions

Finally, always avoid TV at night. The first problem with TV is that it prevents the gradual period of darkness you need before sleep.

The second problem is more subtle. Research by psychophysiologist Thomas Mulholland showed that within 30 seconds of watching TV your brain enters an alpha state. There isn't anything wrong with an alpha state by itself, in fact there are a lot of benefits to alpha waves which are beyond the scope of this section.

TV & Pot Put The Brain in Alpha

The problem is that in alpha the mind is much more suggestible than normal. Alpha is actually the state the brain enters in response to smoking pot. Watching TV is not the same as smoking pot but that is the direction TV is taking your brain by putting it in alpha.

TV Causes Switch to Emotional Thinking and Numbs Critical Thinking

Herbert Krugman also showed that TV causes the left hemisphere to virtually shut down and the right hemisphere to become twice as active as the left. The left hemisphere is what the brain uses for critical thinking and analysis while the right side is more emotional. This switch from left to right causes the brain to release a surge of opioids into the bloodstream which has an anesthetic effect on the mind.

Brain Mush Mode is Bad News for OBEs

This is why watching TV for a long time makes it feel like your brain has turned to mush. The combination of these three effects:

First being awash in opioids, secondly having a numbed left hemisphere and third being tuned to an alpha state leaves the brain very susceptible to suggestion.

Brain mush mode opens the gate for all the commercials and other junk on TV to go directly past the mind's usual critical thinking defenses. If you go to sleep in that state it leads to hazy dreams. If you do have an OBE in that state it's very unlikely to be very clear.

In the next section we'll cover the fastest way ever to have OBEs and lucid dreams. This technique is the missing piece that I wish I'd had when I first started doing OBEs. It's called "the timer method" and allows you to cheat and easily trigger as many OBEs as you want - without using any visualizations.

About The Author

Want to lucid dream tonight? Nick is the author of Lucidology 101: How to Trick Your Body into Falling Asleep to Have Lots of Amazing Lucid Dreams. You can download this video free and learn how to use sleep paralysis to lucid dream.

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