alright guys in this video I want to talk about the stages of sleep and how
how sleep works in general because I don't think I've actually mentioned that
before I just want to explain like a very basic background information about
how sleep cycles and stages work and the best way of using that to learn how to
lucid dream and sleep better so in an average night's sleep okay this is
assuming by the way we're gonna take example we're gonna come up with an
example name I don't know let's say Johnny right so let's say Johnny sleeps
8 hours a day 8 to 9 hours a day so he goes to bed at
10:00 he wakes up at 6 a.m. which is a fairly a specific standard sleep pattern
sleep schedule it's not too late going to bed but it's also early enough that
you can get ready for work and stuff so Ted let's say 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. is
the sleep duration that's how long they've got giant sleep so within that
time you'll have 5 about 5 sleep stages cycle sorry which sleep cycles within
that time you'll have 5 sleep cycles now a sleep cycle is a 90-minute period
consisting of 5 sleep stages so there's a lot of terminology here that sometimes
gets mixed up and I even myself you know in previous videos I I sometimes mix
these things up because it's so it's so easy to do you know these words are
fairly synonymous with each other but there are they do mean different things
so let me explain a sleep cycle is what we refer to as that chunk of 90 minutes
that 90 minute chunk of time within which there are sleep stages so if you
think of the cycle as a big wheel right and in the stages are the little spokes
on the wheel so you've got stage 1 stage 2 2 3 4 5 so as your average night's
sleep let's say 8 hours is made up of 5 sleep cycles so 5 chunks of 19 minutes
roughly ok the timings might not add up perfectly some sometimes it's shorter
sometimes it's it's more you know it is the human body is not an exact thing you
know that sometimes we'll sleep or 4 more or less time it also depends on
interruptions and things like that but just for argument's sake let's just
assume 5 90 minutes which are your sleep cycles within each
cycle you have five sleep stages the first stage is n REM sleep non REM sleep
essentially this is just your body starting to transition from being awake
to being asleep okay now if you're if you're woken up during this stage of
sleep most people when they're woken up during this stage
will not even feel like they've been at sleep at all they might just say oh I
was just my eyes were just closed okay but they actually were starting to fall
asleep and it is technically a stage of sleep but most people will just think oh
I was just closing my I was just resting okay they won't say oh I was in a deep
sleep so this is a transition period this is also where when you do the wild
technique you you keep your mind awake during this non REM stage of sleep in
order to slip into a lucid dream but that's for another video so the first
stage non REM sleep okay and this lasts for anywhere between five to ten 15
minutes it really depends on the person I'm not I'm actually not going to go
into the timings of these things just because it does vary massively from
person to person and you know there's a lot of different factors that will
influence this like say if you're if you're sleep-deprived let's say you've
not been having enough sleep during the week then on date day seven say for
example you're you might jump straight into deep sleep and you might miss the
first three stages of sleep this is very very common it's known as a sleep debt
and it's essentially your body just trying to catch up on the lost deep
sleep that you've missed so I'm not gonna go into timings but stage one is a
non REM sleep transition period not really a proper stage of sleep but it's
like the transition between being awake and being asleep stage two stage two is
essentially just like a continuation of stage one it's where your your sleep
paralysis will kick in you know your body will start to paralyze your muscles
and you will start to well not start to you will be asleep during this stage and
this is where your body starts to slow down it's things like metabolism you
know your core temperature will cool down to get ready for the deeper stages
of sleep and you'll start to be more relaxed especially if this is a first
cycle of the night so when you first go to sleep this is where your body will
start to bring the temperature down bring the heart rate the blood pressure
bring it all down to a low relaxed deep state of relaxation yeah that's stage
two now stages three and four are where things get interesting this is where the
arguably arguably these are the most important stages of sleep along with REM
sleep but mainly the three and four what what happens here is your body starts to
regenerate you start to have a lot of things happen within your body like your
you'll start to regenerate your your energy things like this you will start
to you'll be very deeply asleep at this point if you are woken up during these
sleep stages you will feel very groggy okay you will feel fatigued annoyed
anxious sad angry whatever not a good idea to wake yourself will have you all
be woken up during stages three and four this is also when your body releases
growth hormone okay so if you're let's say if you work out are you at the gym
or something like this you've you may have heard it been said that most of the
muscle growth happens when you're asleep and this is very true during stages
three and four your body releases growth hormone it fixes its muscles it repairs
things it digests your food it does all these these things for you it does all
these things for you during those stages very important stages of your sleep very
very important and then we move on to my favorite stage which is Stage five Stage
five is your REM sleep this is your rapid eye movement sleep and the reason
it's called that is because your eye is underneath your eyelids
during this stage are they're darting about all over the place okay they're
looking at in random corners of your eyes we don't really know the exact
reason for that you know some people say it's because you're looking where you
are looking in your dream and there is some truth to that but that's not always
the case okay that doesn't always happen for everyone so this is also being been
called paradoxical sleep the reason it's called paradoxical sleep is because your
brain this should be the stage where you're the most relaxed but your brain
is actually sort of hyperactive at this point you know you've got a lot of
hormones going through your body related to awareness
consciousness alertness that sort of thing and this is why it's the perfect
time to have a lucid dream and so what happens is when you get to the end of
your REM sleep you'll sort of cycle back again to the start of the next sleep
cycle so you start again in non-rem sleep the the light transition period
that I said about before this doesn't mean this doesn't mean that you wake up
every 90 minutes what happens is is a fluid transition so you'll go from
having REM sleep after the first sleep cycle you go from having REM sleep at
the end smoothly into having non REM sleep where you're transitioning you're
not really transitioning the second time you're already asleep
you're just going into the next cycle however it is a good time and it is a
very common time to wake up during that at that time when you've just had your
REM sleep most people wake up during those those periods of time especially
towards the end of the night which we'll get into in a second that cycle now
essentially repeats itself five to six times depending on how long you sleep
for and if you're interrupted until you wake up very simple right very very
simple I hope you're following along so far now what happens is most most of
those steeped in sleep stages most of them stay the same throughout the night
the only difference the only changes there are as you as you get closer to
waking up the last two sleep cycles the last hour and a half
there's sorry I lost the last three hours of your sleep the last two sleep
stages during the last three hours of your sleep the last two sleep cycles
your REM sleep gets progressively longer during those those last few hours of
your sleep and that is why it's a perfect time to lucid dream okay so the
last few hours of your sleep are the ideal time to lucid dream your hormones
are in the perfect position right you've got serotonin slowly rising in your
bloodstream to make way for you waking up to get your consciousness and you
know prepare your mind to be alert and awake for the day but at the same time
because you've had three or four state sleep cycles where you've had your
restorative deep sleep your body is very relaxed your body temperature is still
fairly low and you're still able to have these vivid dreams making it the perfect
time to lucid dream now most dreams happen during REM sleep which is why
it's the most important time to target is
your last few hours of your REM sleep which happens during the early hours of
the morning which is why you may have heard of the technique wake back to bed
essentially what you're doing is you're waking yourself up during that time to
then go back to sleep and have a lucid dream now that is how the sleep cycles
sleep stages that's how they all work in order to learn more about how to best
target those those different stages and how to best utilize them for lucid
dreaming I'm gonna save that for another video because I just want to you know I
think this video has gone on long enough and I the coffee in on my shelf there
it's been waiting for me for a good few minutes now so I'm gonna cut it there
hopefully you understand and I'll see you next time
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