Wake Back To Bed: Lucid Dreams with WBTB


Wake Back To Bed, or the WBTB method, is a variation on the Cycle Adjustment Technique with one key difference: the results are immediate. You can use this method every day of the week, or just on weekends - it's up to you. The more you practice this lucid dreaming technique, the more lucid dreams you can have.

This method is a great way for beginners to learn how to have lucid dreams. Many report multiple conscious dreams using the WBTB method, with some lasting over an hour. So if you want to control your dreams but don't give this method a go... you would have to be crazy ;)

The Wake Back To Bed Method

STEP ONE - Go to bed as normal and allow yourself to sleep for six hours. Set your alarm clock or have another early riser wake you up.

STEP TWO - After six hours, get out of bed and fully wake yourself up. Find something to occupy your brain to make you alert. Read about lucid dreaming if you want to stay focused on the subject. Stay alert for 20-60 minutes. (Hint: you must get out of bed!)

STEP THREE - Go back to bed and relax. If your mind is too alert, practice meditation, listen to brainwave entrainment and/or perform Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams. Use your visualization skills to place your mind back in the dreamscape and plan your next lucid dream as you fall asleep.

How The WBTB Method Works

Wake Back To Bed is an easy way to learn how to have lucid dreams that really works. But why?

First, it works because you stimulate your conscious brain at a time you would normally be experiencing REM sleep. This leads to consciousness in dreams. Second, when you do return to sleep, you will dive straight into REM sleep from a conscious state, also inducing multiple dreams one after another.

Put the two together and you have a far greater chance of becoming lucid. I have tried the Wake Back To Bed technique with consistent results.

In fact, I do it inadvertently most days. I get up early to let our puppy out to pee, and the act of getting up and moving around really wakes me up. When I return to bed I practice the MILD technique. This causes me to spend the next two hours phasing in and out of vivid dreams and quite easily leads to lucidity.

Remember though, the longer you stay up, the more your conscious brain will surface. So the first time you try this, stay up for at least 20-60 minutes.

An Easy Lucid Dreaming Technique

If you really want to learn how to have lucid dreams, the WBTB method isn't much hardship. It can work even if you don't perform any visualizations or mediation (although this will increase your chances of lucidity).

Note that if you normally only sleep for six hours, reduce your sleep time even more (say, to four hours). The idea is to temporarily delay your regular REM sleep. When you fall asleep again, you will dive straight into REM sleep, an essential part of a normal sleep cycle.

So practice Wake Back To Bed whenever you get the chance - especially if you don't have any time pressures at weekends - and learn how to have lucid dreams in as little as a few days.


About The Author

About The Author

Rebecca Casale is a lucid dreamer and a science writer with a special interest in biology and the brain. She is the founder of World of Lucid Dreaming and Science Me.