Can we make REM longer?

hey everyone hows it going.
just had a thought after getting my book (finally) lucid dreaming exploring the dream world. which is awesome for mall of you intetrested its available on amazon.
is it possible to stop you losing your REM period and just having like hours worth of REM dreaming?
the book says all about the rem periods and stuff which i neat but im still wondering because it says the maximum it gets to is about 1 hours worth of REM, could this be made longer? i hope so.
as usual all replys are welcomed and appreciated.
thanks for reading..

Hi Conisag,

There are claims of extending the REM period, however, you would have to change your sleep cycle. Do a search on Polyphasic sleep or Uberman sleep. Basically you don't ever sleep for 8 hours straight - you just live by taking naps throughout the day and night.

From what I hear, it's very difficult to accomplish (specially if you have a job or go to school) - but apparently it's great for lucid dreaming because you are constantly in a situation where you can WILD - going from awake directly to REM or dreaming whenever you lay down for your rest period.

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Originally Posted by conisag

hey everyone hows it going.
just had a thought after getting my book (finally) lucid dreaming exploring the dream world. which is awesome for mall of you intetrested its available on amazon.
is it possible to stop you losing your REM period and just having like hours worth of REM dreaming?
the book says all about the rem periods and stuff which i neat but im still wondering because it says the maximum it gets to is about 1 hours worth of REM, could this be made longer? i hope so.
as usual all replys are welcomed and appreciated.
thanks for reading..

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I think it can be done if U take Melantonin but I heard that stuff is not good for Ur sleep cycle.

IMJ

REM occurs after about 5 hours of sleep doesn't it? So if you sleep for about 14 hours would this not extend your REM period? I am no expert in the field of Dream Stages, but it sounds like it would work.

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REM occurs after about 5 hours of sleep doesn't it?

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Actually, REM occurs many times during the night (in cycles)- usually about 90 minutes from the time you start to fall asleep. As the night progresses, the amount of time you spend in REM increases, making your longest dreams happen in the early morning.

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Originally Posted by Tornado Joe

Actually, REM occurs many times during the night (in cycles)- usually about 90 minutes from the time you start to fall asleep. As the night progresses, the amount of time you spend in REM increases, making your longest dreams happen in the early morning.

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I don't sleep in the morning xD but I know what you are saying. Thanks for clearing that up though. So basically what you are saying is that the longer you are sleeping the longer your REM period is? So if you were to sleep for 15 hours than you would have a long REM period? That makes sense since it seems to be what I experience when I am asleep for a prolonged period of time.

..wow I see this site is progressing on any advancements sine last time i've been here..months.. Anyways back to the ques. Yes after a certain amount of sleep REM lasts for various hours after sleeping. The eason being that you wake up around 8 hours is because each sleep cycle, beta waves more and more beta waves occur to the point you're not tired anymore. After 8 hours of sleep, ry waiting like 4 hours or so to take a nap and you should automatically go into REM.

Your body typically goes into a REM cycle every 90-120 minutes. Moreover, the periods increase in length the longer you've been sleeping. So, theoretically, you could increase your REM stages exponentially by sleeping unbelievably long hours. Granted I don't know too much about how the brain handles itself during sleep, there may be a limit to how many cycles you can go through before it just doesn't work anymore.

Even so, good luck trying to sleeping for 14 hours at a time. :p

You could also increase your REM cycle by simply not sleeping. The brain is capable of adjusting itself to an incredible extent when it comes to sleep. If you go incredibly long periods without obtaining the necessary REM cycles, and then decide to take a nap, your brain will jump to its REM cycle much faster to compensate for lost time.

Other than that, I'm not too keen on methods for increasing REM cycles. Niether method seems really viable.

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Originally Posted by Brandon Heat

I don't sleep in the morning xD but I know what you are saying.

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That's "morning" as in, you go to bed at night and wake in the morning. In other words, later in your sleep.

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So basically what you are saying is that the longer you are sleeping the longer your REM period is? So if you were to sleep for 15 hours than you would have a long REM period? That makes sense since it seems to be what I experience when I am asleep for a prolonged period of time.

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There's a maximum limit to the length of any one REM period. So, they get longer as the night progresses but it levels off after so many periods.

Naps are almost exclusively REM sleep. You aren't tired enough to go into deep sleep, the same thing with waking up in the morning and being to lazy to get up so going back to bed. If you take lots of naps you will have more REM time, although not make your REM any longer.

Are you trying to do this in order to make you're dreams longer?

If so then you're wasting your time because when dreaming it's all about perception. You could live 3 years in a dream but it could be only 3 minutes in you're waking state.

Now that I've started getting back into this and actually keeping track of my dreams again, I'm planning on actually finding out a way to actually make it seem like my dreams are longer.

Sometimes I sleep for 10-15 hours, but i wake up in between dreams.

By the way if you become an harcore alcoholic then give it up you supposedly get an REM overflow (GABA's being inhibited or something), sometimes resulting in hullicinations, and can result in death. So, not the best option for sure.