Sleep positions

I have this feeling that dreams are greatly affected by the position you sleep in. There are many factors which could contribute to it. Like such as bloodflow to certain areas of the brain which could result in you thinking differently in dreams. Your equilibruim probably effects your dreams too, so depending on how your head is turned might also affect the content or detail of dreams. Then there are also theories out there about magnetic polarities affecting OBE’s.

Another reason I think sleep positions make a difference is because it takes me a signifigantly larger amount of time to fall asleep face up compared to sleeping on my side(usually my right side). To be honest, I can never fall asleep face up and I don’t know why. I eventually have to turn on my side if I want any sleep that night. However I do notice a difference between sleeping on my right and left side though. I remember reading somewhere that its better for men to sleep on their right side and women to sleep on their left side. I don’t know why they say this, but I do know for fact that the only times I ever have nightmares is when I’m sleeping on my left side.

I know there probably aren’t solid answers to some questions involving this, but maybe we can assemble a database and find some information from that. Respond with any opinions on anything involving sleep positions, but don’t forget to post some information about how you sleep such as…

What position you sleep in most often?

What direction your head points?

What position is most comfortable? Which one is least?

And What position do you think is easiest to LD in from personal results?

I think this is was from a Tibetan monk, but i don’t know why he said it.

I sleep in any position except i hardly ever sleep in the curled up position.

I find them all pretty equal in every way.

I think it’s time again to lay down my theory about sleeping positions, routines, and lucid dreaming.

I’ll start by briefly describing what a routine is, and how it exists in your brain. Let’s look at a common daily activity that you’ve done thousands of times before, like walking. Individually, walking consists of hundreds of smaller motions all functioning in a particular order. Nobody remembers how they learned to walk, but like anything else, it was a process of working out which actions were involved, and in what order. Each little movement can be broken down further into its separate muscle movements, and again further until we get right down to the series of linked neural nodes that perform that function.

The more you perform any complicated action (meaning anything that involves more than one basic movement) the stronger the link grouping those nodes becomes. This is the basis for everything we do. While initially we might need to consciously work out what individual actions are required to perform a particular complicated activity, eventually these ‘programs’ become so natural we can handle them subconsciously. We no longer need to consciously think about what action we’re up to when we walk, we just run the whole process subconsciously because the routine is so strongly linked that we’re unlikely to get it wrong.

Such can be said for everything you learn to do. Reading, typing, responding to conversation, everything. Now, to get to the point of all this. Let’s say you’re in the middle of running a common routine, like walking, when suddenly you encounter an environmental factor that prevents you from continuing. Let’s say you approach a step, which you’ll have to take into account unless you want to fall on your head. Since we’ve all walked up steps thousands of times, even this is just a subconscious addition to your program which is there to handle such an event. Without even thinking, you raise your leg higher than usual, and ascend the step - no problem, and not even a distraction to your current train of thought.

Now, imagine you encounter something that you haven’t had to deal with so many times in the past - for example, you step on something deceptively slippery, and lose your balance. Suddenly, your regular subconscious walking routine is interrupted and you find yourself having to use your conscious mind to resolve the problem. You don’t have a program ready to handle walking on something slippery, so you’re forced to assume conscious control of yourself instead of letting your subconscious handle the activity.

Important point: When something interrupts your regular subconscious routine, you’re forced to handle the situation consciously.

None of this is theory so far, it’s just how we work. Individual movements are a result of linked neural nodes, and any action is made up of an indefinite number of movements. Each time you perform a chain of these actions in the same order, the links between those actions become physically stronger, resulting in a greater chance that a neural charge will travel down the path, and ultimately you’ll be more successful performing the action each subsequent recursion. If you don’t do something for a while, these biological links degrade, and you tend to ‘forget’ how to do it.

Now, sleeping is just a routine like any other, albeit not one that you can consciously control should the need arise (you simply wake up in this case). Still, the point remains that your mind is subconsciously going about its list of linked actions that collectively define sleep, and each of its separate stages. Now, my theory is, if you interrupt this routine by adding an unusual environmental factor to its otherwise stable pattern, your mind may be forced to invoke consciousness to resolve the problem. For example, let’s say you sleep on your side every single night, and have done for the entirety of your life. While sleeping, your mind is simply used to feeling pressure on your arm, and it deals with that as merely part of the program.

What if one night you change, and decide to sleep on your back? Instantly your existing program is changed, and you can’t subconsciously assume the routine. In fact, you might even find it very hard to get to sleep in the first place, because the first few lines of ‘code’ (so to speak) specify that you can feel pressure on your arm. Your body already doesn’t feel right, and so the next part of the routine can’t yet fire. Now this example is a little extreme, because almost everyone has slept in so many different positions during their life that their mind has undoubtedly already developed routines that allow for this to happen.

At this point, I’d like to bring your attention to Sun-Eye Method 4, which includes a tip that sleeping while sitting up can increase your chance of lucidity. You might not have been able to see any credible reason for this previously, but consider what I’ve been rambling about. Sure it might not feel much different sitting up, but what about the balance sensors in your ears? All of a sudden, they’re telling your brain that you’re sitting (or standing) upright, and none of your routines currently take that into account. Your routine is expecting your balance sensors to report that you’re laying down… so, what does your mind do? Does it wake you up so you can consciously handle the situation, remove the problem, and return to regular sleep? Perhaps.

But perhaps it simply wakes up your conscious mind? Your body stays asleep, but your mind is active as a result of your subconscious finding itself unable to run any of its routines. This could be why people report success with lucid dreaming when they sleep in an unusual position, or environment.

At the risk of becoming boring, I’ll leave it at that. I hope some of it makes sense.

Athiest, everything you wrote does make sense to me. :ok:

Have you published any books?..

Anyway… I’m going to try sleeping sitting up tonight.

A very nicely put post which clears a lot up for me, Atheist. Great analogies and such to put things into perspective.

And don’t worry about being boring. The more information is all the better, but I can understand your fingers being tired after typing all that :grin: .

I tried to sleep sitting up last night but that was difficult, even though I was very tired. Most likely because my subconc never automaticaly gets me in that position for sleep, so my wakeful mind’s gotta be woken up to try this “odd” thing;

" O.K. , so here I am trying to sleep sitting up. Am I asleep yet? No. Am I asleep yet? No. Am I asleep yet? NO!"

I wish I could just turn my darn mind off.

And I did, by laying down on my usual side and went out like a light.
No LD :no:

I’ve been having a dry spell for like 2 months! :crying:

i almost always sleep facing the right and with my head pointing in the same direction,in a fetal position,this is the most comfortable position for me the most uncomfortable is on my stomache.

I have noticed that when I have lucid dreams, I wake up flat straight on my back so “perfect”. So last night I tried to fall asleep that way which is really hard for me. (I’ve got to sleep on my side!) I forced myself to stay in that position no matter where or what the itch or whatever. Yet I kept my mind off and far from my body, by desiring to meet with someone I love :nodnodwinkwink: Then, when I just couldn’t keep up the struggle any longer, I “gave up” and turned to the side. And,

I became Lucid, soooo Lucid in my dreams last night. :content:
I still need to figure out exactly how my minds work.
I’m working on it. First, I’m examining my automatic behaviour patterns when it comes to LD’ing. I’m making note of what position I fall asleep in, what position I wake up in , and of course the dreams I have, and all else of what ever else in between.
I want to type out thoughts all night, but excuse me, this is an insomnia night, soooo… ramble, ramble, ramble…

I usually sleep on my side, with my head a little down into the pillow, but recently, i tried the mp3s on warpmymind, and I fell asleep while listening to a file on my back, and I had better dream recall than usuall. now I can fall asleep on my back, and that 3rd eye thing is a lot easier to work with.

I always sleep on my side, preferably my right side. I read once that you should sleep (if you’re sleeping on your side) on the right because the way your internal organs are, you will be more comfortable because your organs wont be squishing one enother. I don’t know if this is complete bogus, but it works for me :happy: right side is definently comfy.
I’ll try getting to sleep on my back and see if it helps induce lucid dreaming!

I used to move around alot in my sleep until I recently got one of those pillows that form to your head. I sleep more still now on my back but in forms to your head no matter how you sleep. Not sure how it affects my dreams yet though.

Atheist, you do some computer programming, don’t you? It shows on your text! :wink:

I also usually wake on my back from LD…

That’s pretty much all I do, at work or at home. People often say you can tell a programmer by the way they have trouble explaining things in a simple manner. I guess that’s true. :content:

I’ve never really written anything larger than the articles I occasioanlly put up around this place. Maybe one day I will, if I can devote the necessary time and effort. :smile:

Oh, it was easier to find out… :tongue: Look:

“Routines”, “Handles”, “few lines of ‘code’”… Next will be the OOP in dreams! :rofl: