# Sleep and Dreams > General Dream Discussion >  >  afternoon nap

## legonut4

what is good about afternoon naps? ::?:

----------


## Elucive

They say that when you take a nap, you're mind reaches the REM stages way quicker than at night when you first get into bed.

So, with this in mind, people combine naps with an induction technique, to greatly improve their chances at becoming lucid.

----------


## Shift

Keep in mind that the original source of that is... difficult to find  ::?:  I have no idea how legitimate it is, but I don't understand how your mind could possibly know that you were in 'nap' mode versus 'sleep all night' mode.

Regardless though, I have had a lot of lucid dreams during 2-5 hour naps. So go nuts. Ignore REM. Enjoy lucids.

----------


## Elucive

I'm not sure how legitimate it is either ...but it's definetly reliable. I ALWAYS have dreams whenever I nap, even if it's only for 20 minutes. They're pretty vivid too.

----------


## Nathuu

Same goes for me, I always get lucid dreams when I nap in the bath. pretty detailed, vivid one too.

----------


## Infinityecho

> Same goes for me, I always get lucid dreams when I nap in the bath. pretty detailed, vivid one too.



 :Eek: 
Sounds kind-da dangerous ya'know, 

sleeping in water in all.



Naps are great, but only a small handful of mine have been lucid.

----------


## Nathuu

> Sounds kind-da dangerous ya'know, 
> 
> sleeping in water in all.
> 
> 
> 
> Naps are great, but only a small handful of mine have been lucid.



Depends on the bath and your height I guess, I know I would have to purposely go under water to drown, physic obliging.

----------


## MikeMk

> what is good about afternoon naps?



It is one of the best time to LD like 6-8 a.m.

----------


## Koalaman

> Keep in mind that the original source of that is... difficult to find  I have no idea how legitimate it is, *but I don't understand how your mind could possibly know that you were in 'nap' mode versus 'sleep all night' mode*.
> 
> Regardless though, I have had a lot of lucid dreams during 2-5 hour naps. So go nuts. Ignore REM. Enjoy lucids.



You have a biological clock. I guess your mind notices when it is time, for example when it thinks enough time has passed since you have had your last sleep. I do think morning naps are much better, because you've just woken up and it should be easier to go back to REM sleep. Stephen LaBerge backs this up here, by a study in which he found out that a waking period of two hours before taking a morning nap was more likely to induce a lucid dream than a waking period of four hours.

----------


## Shift

But how could it possibly know the difference between sleeping for 8 hours, or "I am only going to sleep for 2 hours"?

Say Bob goes to bed at 2pm. He plans on getting up at 4. He goes to sleep, and his body 'automatically' (according to the myth) sets him up for awesome nap rem sleep and etc.

Jim goes to bed at 2pm. He plans on getting up at 4, but ends up oversleeping until 10 pm. He has just gotten 8 hours of sleep. Even though he was planning only to nap for two hours. Does his body automatically set him up for awesome nap rem sleep and etc.? What does it do when it realizes he is not just napping?

Mike gets in bed at 2pm and is calling it an early night. He plans on sleeping as long as possible because he's had an exhausting week. He doesn't want to get up until about 6am the next day. Unfortunately, once he's been asleep a couple of hours, he is awakened by his smoke detectors. His house is on fire and burns to the ground, and he doesn't get any more sleep that night. Even though his body 'knew' he was going to bed for the night, did he get that awesome nap rem sleep?

My point being that the rumor/myth/whatever is that, regardless of what time you typically go to bed for the night, wake up, what sort of light system you are on, people seem to believe that if you go to bed 'just for a nap', your body somehow knows this and adjusts the sleep stages to make your nap full of awesome rem periods and dreams. I'm just wondering how the hell this can be when you have people on things like uberman, when you have people with crazily different sleep times, when you have people with inconsistent sleep schedules, and most importantly when you have a body that somehow knows you're planning to sleep for exactly 2-4 hours and to adjust the physiology of sleep so that you have perfect rem sleep ideal for lding.

People rarely factor in or even talk about how the circadian rhythm and sleep cycles are actually supposed to be playing out, or what times you need to be going to bed and waking up to have them perfectly coincide to give you a good nap full of rem sleep. That's what I have trouble with- the huge generalization that fails to take into account all of the small details and differences between each individual dreamer and their sleeping habits.

----------


## RunflaCruiser

I usually take a couple naps during the week but never seem to remember dreams during them.
I took one last week and remembered my first dream in a nap. It was surprising for me. I even told my wife of how surprised I was to actually remember a dream during a nap, just like if it was a dream at night.

----------

