Here in Part 6 you’ll find out how to use the sun to avoid the #1 mistake in O.B.E.s & how to optimize your brain chemistry.
Plus – The ONE O.B.E. induction I would use if I was not 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 O.B.E.s are actually telling them to make this mistake. People often ask for advice on forums about how to induce O.B.E.s. The posts often start out saying: “Last night I went to bed to do an O.B.E.”
Here they’ve actually already made the cardinal O.B.E mistake. The mistake is: Don’t do your O.B.E. attempts at night (like most books say). Instead do them in the early morning!!!
Optimal Brain Chemistry Is All About Timing
Optimal O.B.E. brain chemistry is all about timing and your body’s circadian rhythm. I’ve had literally thousands of O.B.E.s in the early morning. I’ve had fewer than ten at night.
Circadian Rhythm Brain Chemistry
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 to 4 AM. 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 O.B.E.s in the early morning.
The Circadian Sweet Spot: 4 To 5:30 Am
This sweet spot is between around 4 AM and 5:30 AM. 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 O.B.E.s
Bed time is the single worst time of all for O.B.E.s 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 bed time 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 or regaining lucidity.
“Wake Back To Bed”Is The Single Most Powerful Trick!
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” 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 O.B.E 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 O.B.E.s and lucid dreams. We’ll use wake back to bed as the foundation for more 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 O.B.E.s 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
You have two options:
Option 1: Wbtb + No Movement
1.) 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
2.) 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 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 O.B.E.s simply by changing the wakefulness period to 45 minutes. Waiting until you start yawning again is a good rule of thumb.
Daytime Sunlight Increases O.B.Es
The amount of sun you get has a giant impact on your ability to have O.B.E.s 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.
1 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 O.B.E 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 O.B.E.s
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 O.B.E in that state it’s very unlikely to be very clear.
In the next section we’ll cover the fastest way ever to have O.B.E.s and lucid dreams. This technique is the missing piece that I wish I’d had when I first started doing O.B.E.s. It’s is called “the timer method” and allows you to cheat and easily trigger as many O.B.E.s as you want – without using visualizations at any point.
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[...] One point I got from the link I dropped in this thread was that the easiest time to do lucid dreaming or OBEs is early in the morning. Which corresponds with my experience. I dream or have lucid dreams almost exclusively in the morning. The reason for that has to do with brain chemistry. Melatonin ramps up through the night and peaks in early am, and also cortisol starts getting built up for when you wake up. This means that the melatonin is there to keep you relaxed but the cortisol is there to keep you alert. I'm sure it's no rule and there are no doubt some that do it when ever they like to. How To Use The Sun To Avoid The #1 Mistake In Lucid Dreams & How To Optimize Your Brain Chemistr… [...]
Hi there!
Very nice videos and a short question to this one:
So you could say that smoking pot is even worse for OBE induction than watching TV and that for similar reasons?
Greets