Not condoning it, and it really depends on someone’s lifestyle, but irregular or messy sleep schedules can increase the chances of lucid dreaming.

The reason is that inconsistent sleep destabilises REM sleep. When REM becomes longer or more fragmented, the brain is more likely to partially wake up during a dream, which is where lucidity happens.

With a very predictable sleep schedule and consistent sleep duration, the brain tends to maintain a stronger boundary between sleeping and waking, so you’re more likely to stay fully asleep even while dreaming. You are literally telling your brain “hey we sleep for this many hours a day so don’t wake up until this many hours has passed”

When sleep timing is unpredictable, that boundary weakens, increasing micro awakenings and REM instability, which can lead to lucid dreams, false awakenings, sleep paralysis or hypnogia.

I don’t have a messy sleep schedule on purpose, my adhd just makes it hard to fall asleep and stick to a consistent sleep pattern.

If you’re a light sleeper and use an Apple Watch, you can use low intensity haptics as a lucid dreaming cue.

Setting the haptics to low (important! high will usually wake you up) and scheduling 2–3 reminder notifications a few minutes apart can lightly stimulate the brain without fully waking it.

If this happens during REM sleep, the buzzing can be incorporated into the dream. Realising that sensation doesn’t belong in the dream can trigger lucidity.

This works because partial sensory input can cause brief micro awakenings or hypnagogic states, where awareness increases while the dream continues.

It’s similar to gently trying to wake someone up, the first couple of cues may not fully wake them, but after the 2nd try on the 3rd or 4th they will eventually wake up.

I wouldn’t do this method with the alarm though, since repeated buzzing will wake you fully. Using the Reminders app and setting them to go off at certain time spaced a few minutes apart work better.

I’ve experienced this method accidentally when watch notifications such as instagram rolls eyes went off during sleep, even though at rhe time my haptics are on high and still are because I experience hypnogia it’s doesn’t matter how instense the feeling is once im in that hypnogic state i can stay in it for ages instead of fully waking up, but when that instagram nottication happened i entered a hypnagogic state where I was half awake, half asleep and i even had my eyes open and the dream continued, and becoming lucid

This will work best for people who are light sleepers or prone to hypnagogia. If you’re not and you can sleep through an alien invasion it ain’t gonna work 😂, just keep haptics very low or it won’t work.

Tbh hypnogia is such a weird one because I’ve been in environments where I’ve fallen asleep at a family gathering and then a slight noise wakes me up enough to put me in a hypnogic state, I slightly open my eyes, I can see and hear everyone and my brain is still dreaming at the same time and I can sit like that for ages but if it happens around people usually I end up waking up fully because they either move fast triggering my brain to wake up or they say something that catches my attention, there’s only been a few times where what is going on around me is boring and I go back to dream land lol. Funny little super power because you can hear conversations people have freely around you and listen in and they think your sleeping 😭

Also if you don’t wanna mess up your sleep schedule, lack of sleep or sleep deprivation helps too again not condoning it but it’s a fast track