# Lucid Dreaming > Attaining Lucidity > Dream Signs and Recall >  >  Red light instead of white light when writing in your dream journal

## Mental

So you want to write down dreams in the middle of the night but bright light annoys you and wakes you up too much?  I have the solution!

Red dim light will not dilate your pupils as much as a bright white light.  So create dim red light in one of several ways:

Use a low wattage red party bulb.

Paint a low wattage bulb with red fingernail polish.

Place a red lense in a mag-light flashlight.

Find a pair of lights you wear like glasses.  Paint the lights with red fingernail polish.

You get the idea...
I started this long ago and can't imagine doing it any other way.

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## Raphael

Good idea, I'll start using my tactical red flashlight  ::D:

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## INTJ

If you would like to know the reason why the red light works, I can tell you. Personally, I find it fascinating.

The eyes have both rods and cones, the rods are very sensitive to light, which allows one to see in very dimly lit environments. However, the reason that the rods are so sensitive is that there are about 120 light receptors for every one neuron. This means that it takes less to activate the neuron but at a cost to clarity (imagine a picture using one pixel everywhere there should be 120 pixels). Additionally, these receptors are most sensitive for wavelenghts of 498 nm (green light); yet, are completely insensitive to light above 620 nm (orange light). This means that red light, regardless of the intensity, can not stimulate rod vision. Rods, when exposed to normal intensity light (the light that comes from any ordinary flashlight) will "bleach" and take about 45 minutes to return to full night vision potential. When one is exposed to complete darkness (or very near), the pupils dilate to allow for maximum light to reach the rods (which are located everywhere but in the center region of your eye called the fovea). When a bright light that can be seen by the rods is shone (400nm-620nm: violet-orange), the rod receptors become bleached and the pupil constricts in order to prevent additional light from being shone on the rods. The quick restriction of the pupil is the "pain" felt by one who is suddenly exposed to bright light after prolonged darkness and the "spotted" vision that is nearly blinding is caused by the bleaching of the overwhelmed rod receptors.

Just thought someone may find it interesting  :smiley:  Any questions about what I said don't hesitate to ask.

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## Mental

Thanks for the great explanation!

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## Keitorin

Huh, this is really nifty! I'll have to look for a red party bulb when I go to the store next.  ::D:  I find I procrastinate on writing down my dreams when I wake and it's still dark because it's no fun fumbling for the booklight, and my lamp would blind me.

Thanks!

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## imj

An incandescent or normal light bulb should work also because it contains mainly red and yellow light in the spectrum. Blue light is the one that arouses the day/night rhythm of the sleep state so if you use a fluorescent light which is rich in blue light spectrum it will upset your sleep cycle thinking it is daytime and gear up for wakefullness.

IMJ

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## rikku28

Great idea  :smiley:  Maybe now (IF I CAN wake up) I can finally write it down, because when i use normal lights I wont be able to get to sleep that easily anymore!!

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## INTJ

> An incandescent or normal light bulb should work also because it contains mainly red and yellow light in the spectrum. Blue light is the one that arouses the day/night rhythm of the sleep state so if you use a fluorescent light which is rich in blue light spectrum it will upset your sleep cycle thinking it is daytime and gear up for wakefullness.



The circadian rhythm is affected somewhat as light is being detected by your melanopsin absorbing receptors in the eye. This is sent to the suprachiasmatic nucleus which controls your day/night patterning. Melanopsin can absorb light up to about 640nm, orange light (its peak abs is around 490nm which is blue). Granted, any light being detected by these receptors will be detrimental to sleep efficiency, a small amount of light being being detected will not fool your suprachiasmatic nucleus into believing that it is time to wake so the effects are somewhat negligible (there are several signals which it is integrating at all times to determine 'time'). There are many beautifully written papers about the circadian rhythm, pathways involved, and even genes involved if you are interested.

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## lucidadic

I'm not sure about red light, but I know that your eyes don't need to adjust to green light, which is why they use green light in night vision technology.

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## INTJ

> I'm not sure about red light, but I know that your eyes don't need to adjust to green light, which is why they use green light in night vision technology.



Actually, your eyes do require adjustment to green light. Your rods in your eyes (which are used during dimly lit situations) actually have maximum absorption with green light. The reason they use green light with night vision is that it allows your most sensitive cells in they eye (the rods) to see the images even if the light is too dim for your cones to perceive. However, with green light, your rods do need to adjust back to night vision which can take up 45 minutes for maximum adjustment. I am including a link to an image which shows why red does not effect night vision/rod vision which is required for night vision.

Notice in the picture where the peak of the black line is located (in the green/yellow-green region), it is also near 0% absorption when exposed to red lights. It important to also note that cones adjust in less than 5  minutes while rods take up to 45 which makes a very large difference and when one ensures that rods are not bleached by light then the loss of cone vision is not noticed in dimly lit situations.

http://iaincarstairs.files.wordpress...pg?w=630&h=256

Hope this helps, if you have any questions don't be afraid to ask  :smiley:

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## Manat

Hello all!

Newbie here, just figured I would resurrect an old thread and continue it with my question. I don't want this to be too repetitive if my question has already been discussed here before.

Since I moved to my new apartment, I have been having trouble dream journaling. Granted, sometimes my dream journaling has fallen by the wayside for reasons of motivation and whatnot, but this time it's actually more a problem with LIGHT. In the past, when I have woken up from a dream in the wee hours of the morning, I had no trouble because either the window was just uncovered (my favorite, actually; it allows me to gradually wake up to sunlight) and moonlight or a streetlamp provided gentle light to write by, or I had blinds or a thin curtain that still filtered a little bit of light by. Now in my apartment, we have these rolling shutters that we close at sunset. I'm not not sure I've ever seen them in the States, but they are very common in France. (I actually had this exact same problem when I studied abroad in France). 

This is a long video, but just skip to the very end if you have no idea what I'm talking about.





Anyway, I do not like these, because even if I leave them loose so it's not pitch-black, very little light comes through. It's very disconcerting to wake up in pitch-black or almost pitch-black, feel like it's 3 AM, and then look at the clock and realize you just slept until noon. Furthermore, I can't see anything when I try to write my dreams. The other week I was reading my journal and realized I had accidentally written an entire dream OVER the previous day's dream, because I couldn't see which page to write on. 

I'll try to stop stop rambling and sum this up: I don't really have a choice for the shutters, because that's the way the lady who owns the apartment wants it to be kept. It's a first-floor apartment and she doesn't want to risk intruders, and it provides slightly more insulation (?). In any case, I want to respect her preferences. But I also don't want to go replacing the bulbs in her apartment with red bulbs, or paint the existing bulbs with red paint or something. What I'm asking is, is there any other solution for dark dream journaling? Or perhaps does anyone sell a small light, like book light size, with a red bulb?

In the meantime, all I can do is hope to find a place for next year where I will not have this problem. I really dislike keeping a room dark when there's natural light to be had.

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## Mental

Manat,

Go to a hardware store and buy a pair of glasses with lights on them.  Paint the lights red with fingernail polish.  Fairly cheap and easy.  Its just a little weird buying fingernail polish if you are a guy.

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## Manat

What exactly do you mean? Do you mean the kind of thing where construction workers need light, but don't have enough hands to hold a flashlight? (Suddenly picturing myself wearing a hardhat with a light on it  ::lol::  )

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## Darkmatters

Try one of these lighted pens used for nocturnal marine navigation - they need to be able to write in the log but not dazzle their eyes so they can still see the instruments. Pretty much the same situation as a dream journalist.

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## Mental

Manat,

I'm talking about something like this:

glasses.jpg

I like Darkmatter's idea also.

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## Manat

Oh ok. Thanks! Now that I'm taking a look around, I suppose I could really find any old small light and paint it red.

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