Structured Daydreaming

 This is an old topic. But it receives review for two reasons :

• I was talking to a friend about how I manage memory for sleeping
• I am in a period of physiological recuperation which benefits from more active management

Again.

Epoch 1. Subtraction of dreams from memory state

So, in college, with the intention of making sleep more energy efficient, and restful, I applied a study of sleeping with minimal dreaming. That is, as much as it is consciously possible, zero the imagination.

It turns out that the motivation for this was that my state of mind at that time was quite [ ( consciously passive, but subconsciously ) active in terms of pushing out concepts from the subconscious, into conscious imagination ], so the antagonistic calibration was [ to actively reduce this ].

This became the norm, and I soon needed to make little effort to live in this mode.

• The sleep period for wakeful productivity was determined to be 10 hours/day
• It would found to possible to function at lower rates of learning with 8 and 6 hours/day 

Epoch 2. Addition of dreams to memory state

12 to 14 years later, when I ran a 24-hour cafe and would sleep irregularly, I found that the opposite state of mind to be true. Due probably to [ a combined absence of semantically stimulating work, and a shortage of dream-stage sleep ], my mind was quite sluggish at pushing out concepts from subconscious, into conscious imagination, so the antagonistic calibration was [ to actively increase this ].

In order to execute that, I found it useful to enforce sleeping for long hours, with hydration and stimulants along the way ... mainly fish oil which may have [ assisted vasodilation ], and methylcobalamin which may have aided both as [ a nerve growth factor and a modifier of melatonin metabolism ].

This required active management, so it would be paid more or less attention tactically, over the years since that project

Epoch 3. More measured approaches

Five more years or so, after the cafe project ended, I find myself on sabbatical, mainly active as a student of quantitative subjects, and working on my physical conditioning, albeit with a budgetarily restricted diet.

• At this point, with minimal physical demands from sedentary studies ... I seem to need to make extra effort to get more daily physical resistance.
• Caffeine, m-B12, multivitamins, creatine, fish oil, have been a mostly continuous protocol, albeit with disciplinary gaps; to these I have added carnosine ( via beta alanine ), and arginine ( via whole foods or citrulline .
• Sleep periods last as short as six hours, but days may be correspondingly poor for learning

So it may be time again to enforce more structure : at least 20% of bedtime should be spent in lucid dreaming of some non-zero level of consciousness. For example if I wake after six hours, and don't feel like lying down more, I may rehydrate, dose protein and or m-B12, and then reinsert myself to bed for another 1.5 hours.

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After all, without proper lab equipment and a huge budget, it is very difficult to determine rigorous methods for the delineation of factors from results. But a poor man's science ... proceeds throughout one's life.