Here are some of the frequently asked questions about the Lucid Dreaming App:
Updated 05/23/11
- Q:My graph splits in two segments over the night
A: Most likely the the phone turned off or memory issues caused the app to shut down. When app restarts, part of the data is missing, which may make the graph appear weird and segmented. Try closing other apps or enabing airplane mode for the night to prevent memory issues.
- What’s a light strobe, how do I use it?
A light strobe is an attempt at making the phone screen light up to its maximum brightness for a short time and switch between bright and dark background, causing notable light flashing effect. This is very visible if you are sleeping in a certain position with a phone in front of you. For example I sleep on my right side, facing the phone. When it lights up, I see bright light through my closed eyelids. The key is to time this properly to be seen in a dream.
- App only shows X minutes of sleep, I know it should be more
This is a known issue with the app not working properly with the accelerometer (Check this post for known issues). You have 2 options: perform extended calibration of the app for 30-60 minutes or restart the phone before using the app and seeing if that helped.
- How do I determine when my REM episodes are?
After using the app for multiple nights, you will accumulate a few dream markers, and activity graphs. When you plot them using splash screen> menu>view data>history , you will see that some of the activity levels appear at the same time. Check out this post on how to work with history and configure smart timer
- Does the app support X sound format?
The app uses your phone’s built in media player, and can play all formats supported by the player. If you use OI File manager to pick audio files, you would be able to browse your file system and pick any audio file. Pressing “test reminder” plays the current reminder. If you hear it, it is supported!
- What is app calibration?
In terms of calibration, there are 2 things that have to be determined.
- All accelerometers have different resolution and different noise characteristics.
- They are also digital, so the range of measurements is broken into 256 or so segments.
- When a phone is at rest, the accelerometer randomly jumps from one digital value to another (lets say from 79 to 80 to 81.
- Calibration determines how big each jump is. For example from 79 to 80 is 1 step or 0.04 m/s^2 on my phone, but it may be 0.06 on another phone.
- The app then uses this information to create a +/- 3 digital steps envelope around the true signal and uses that information as variance for a simple Kalman filter which approximates the true position of the signal.
- Is there an iPhone version?
iPhone version is being considered and may be released during 2011
- How do I use feature X?
The app constantly gets new features, and the best way to find out how to use it is to check the news on the main page. Usually I post a feature preview before introducing a feature. Those posts should have some info on the feature.
- What is audio level Kurtosis?
Kurtosis is a measure of how “pointy” the signal distribution is. Kurtosis of 0 means the signal is very even, such as a ceiling fan hum. A high kurtosis indicates rare loud sounds being present, such as saying a word into the mic, irregular snoring, cars honking outside, etc.
- How do I use the WILD gesture?
Go to preferences> edit gestures to see the current WILD gesture. Add your own gesture called “wild” if you want. Drawing this gesture immediately schedules a set of timers that you have set up in the “Configure WILD timers” in preferences. Drawing the gesture again cancels currently running WILD timers. The WILD gesture is intended to be used at the beginning of a WILD attempt.
- How do I use the Math gesture, what is it?
Draw the M letter (to see exact shape, so to preferences> edit gestures). It brings up a running clock dialog asking you to add two or 3 digital clock numbers. Use this to awaken your brain a bit for WBTB technique or other techniques requiring a certain level of awareness.
- What is Pr under the clock?
This is the flaw in the current 7 segment LED font used to draw digital clock, it should actually say AM or PM, but does not have enough segments to do so. I have 3 other fonts(14 segment LED), which do draw the letters, however, they are not monospace, so the letters constantly shift as their shape changes, which is also annoying.
- My partner moves a lot at night, how do I mitigate this?
This is a major obstacle to accurate actigraphy, and there’s no solution currently in place. Check out the latest sound level monitoring, maybe that would help you determine where your own REM events are. Additionally, there’s a silent strobe reminder available which should not be seen
- Did I lose data from the last night?
By default, the Android Lucid Dreaming App app saves data to your SDCard every 10 minutes, and also saves data when the app is killed by the Android system. Exit button on the clock screen also stops data collection and saves data. To see your data from the last night, open the app again, press “menu” on the splash screen (2 Androids) and select “View data”. Then select “Load Graph” and find a graph with the day/time when you started the app for the night which you want. For example last night, May 22 2011, I started the app at 11:30PM (23:30). The graph for that day would be called Data_20110522_2330.txt.gzip . Opening that graph loads it and displays it in the graph viewer.
- How do I properly close the app?
When the app is running, 2 triangle (subject to change) icons are shown in the taskbar. When they are there, the app collects data. To exit the app, start it, and from the screen with the clock, select “Exit” from the menu. This will make the triangles disappear and will stop the app.
Additionally, you may individually terminate the data collection services from the taskbar, if the app crashed and you dont want this data collection to take place.
- None of my reminders played… why?
There are several things you may check
- Ensure you have a reminder present and selected by the app. The default folder is SDCard/Recordings
- In the Smart Timer, click on an event and ensure that checkboxes next to sound, vibration or light are checked and that the event is activated. Press test reminder to see how it would work
- Your Smart Timer events may be set to be active “after movement”. If not enough movement was detected, these will not play. You may check the sensitivity in Menu>Preferences>REM Prediction>REM prediction activity threshold. Lower this setting based on how high your sleep score jumps on movement.
- Does the app automatically detect lucid dreams and dreams?
It is physically impossible to detect dreams and lucid dreams using actigraphy. Such information has to be manually added by the user upon awakening using the on-screen gestures.
- What are the blue blocks on the graph?
These are sleep episodes – periods of total motionlessness. This is where the body is most likely to be in deep sleep with the muscles paralyzed. These are frequently encountered early in the night, but get shorter as the night progresses.
- What about that send data anonymously feature, I’ve seen it somewhere?
It’s exciting that you are asking about this. While this feature is not currently available, it should benefit the advancement of sleep science, particularly actigraphy based sleep apps. No experiments of this scale (tens of thousands of people over a long period of time) have been conducted, and I’m hoping data like that would help scientists find out something new!
- How do I transfer the data to the PC?
You can use the built-in screenshot feature to take a screenshot o the night’s data – this image would be found in the /sdcard/application data/lucid dreaming app/screenshots. The file would have a .png resolution and a filename being the same as the graph that you took an image of.
The data itself is in JSON format, stored in a text file which has been compressed using GZIP algorithm. Additionally, a running log is maintained in the SDCard/application data/lucid dreaming app/log , which may be processed with spreadsheet applications.
Old FAQ
Help! I experience inconsistent data and the app scores no sleep at all.
Check this post for well known issues. You may need to power off your phone, let it cool down and turn it back on before using the app. Try to kill some background apps and turn on the airplane mode, this may prevent some apps from updating through the night.
How long do I have to calibrate the device for?
-The app determines the accelerometer’s paramters in just 4 minutes, discarding the first minute. For best results, calibrate it for 7 minutes. If it is still very noisy, you may need to turn off your phone, let it cool down before turning it back on. This seems to cancel out noisy measurements. I had decent results with as little as 7 minutes of calibration, but I got to know my accelerometer really well. To diagnose your issues, there’s a “calibration log” available in the /application data/lucid dreaming app/calibrationLog.txt which shows the xyz readings obtained from the sensor during calibration. These should be very close to 0. If they are not, try to reboot the phone and recalibrate.
My device is too sensitive/not sensitive enough. What can I do?
-You still have to calibrate, at least for 7minutes, then go to Preferences> Sensitivity tuning and set the new activity level which will be considered sleep. Please note that this will affect how the app scores sleep. The default sleep scoring constant of 0.0033 is used to distinguish between sleep and wakefulness.
I did not hear the voice reminder last night, what’s wrong?
-Your early, mid or late night app behaviors may be too long. The defaults are intentionally set to longer than most people may experience. Adjust them after a couple nights, once you see your sleep graphs and can figure out how long your sleep episodes are. You may also want to check the volume level of the reminder or if the reminder is present at all by selecting “Play current reminder” from the preferences.
I experienced a force close doing something. How can I get it fixed?
Please submit a bug report and it will be fixed!
The app spews unreliable data, what’s wrong?
-Check that you calibrated the app for long enough. You can adjust the sensitivity level. I expect that some phones may have issues with the app. Please help me compile a list of phones with issues.
How do I…
Edit a graph?
The graph is stored in a plain text file which has been zipped to save space. The format is GZIP. There must be tools on the market to unzip such files. You can then edit the data. The app recognizes both .txt and .txt.gzip formats. The file name still has to start with Data…
Share a graph?
Your graph contains all the information required to view and interact with the graph. Just find it in the /application data/lucid dreaming app/graph data folder(filename is displayed above the graph) and send it to another person with the app. That person can put the graph in the folder above and view/interact with it!
Compare graphs?
Use the history feature available from Menu>View Data > View History. For best results, put up to 7 graphs you want to compare in a single folder, when select it using the “create history” menu option. This takes about 7 seconds on HTC HD2 with 1ghz processor. On slower phones it may take a lot longer. To avoid waiting this long, you may “save” your history by selecting “Save History” from the menu. Loading history is a lot quicker than re-creating it every time! Plus it allows you to mix and match your graphs and create different history combinations.
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How does this app fair on a temperpedic memory foam mattress?
I’ve tested it on a very stiff mattress, and it needed some sensitivity adjustment. I’ve never used it on a temperpedic mattress, it is supposed to dampen the vibrations, or eliminate them completely. As of 05/24 the app has a very basic support for audio level monitoring. While tempurpedic dampens vibrations, the sound produced by rustling covers is not affected, I expect better support for sound analysis in the future.
Hi – I think it would be very useful for new users if you included a guide that took a user through exact steps from downloading the app to getting it to work correctly. For example, “first, calibrate your device by doing xxxxxx, then, turn on the app as you’re going to bed and record data for the first xxx amount of nights trying to draw the correct signals upon waking, then modify the default notifications to fit your typical sleeping patterns”
I’m very unclear on how exactly to do these things, or if I have the order right or if i’m using the app right in general. Hopefully what I just asked was clear enough. There is a ton of comprehensive “how-to” material on the website, but I’m looking for a simplified, concise, step-by-step guide to begin using the app the most effectively
Chris,
Thank you for the suggestion. The app is REALLY needs better documentation. I know it, you know it, now it’s just a matter of me writing it.
Haha, fair enough. Thanks Alexander
This seems to be a great app for lucid dreaming and here I am with my iPhone…:/ Until your app is available can you recommend anything for me that can be useful? I have browsed through some apps but they don´t seem to be as thorough as yours. Any thoughts on when/if you´ll make it available for iPhone?
//Cheers
I’m going to start working with iPhone in about a week. Since I never coded for that, it might take some time to get up to speed. I might be able to put together something similar to smart timer in 6 weeks or so, while a full actigraphy enabled app will take longer :/
Thanks! I am really looking forward to it
I will check out this website for updates ever so often…
Hey there,
I have been using this app regularly for the past 20 days and pretty much every night im restless and I wake up feeling tired and lethargic. I spent the night else where last night and I had a very peaceful rest. Comparing the data from my normals nights to last night I noticed that I had almost 70% more awakenings at home.
I was curious to know if my dog jumping on and off my bed would create false awakenings? Also I sleep with a loud fan every night. Would that be causing any problems as well?
Thanks,
Ele
Hi Ele!
I’m not a sleep expert – there are many things that may affect your sleep. For example your diet.
One thing that might’ve caused the difference is your mattress. If the one you have at home is very bouncy, it will record less sleep. If the other one is rigid, it will record less motion and more sleep.
The awakenings that the app records are “intermittent” – a large bodily motion (or a dog jumping on your bed). These awakenings do not indicate full awareness and are largely forgotten by most people…
Is there a way to turn off the clock?
I prefer not to look at any clock when I wake up in the middle of the night.
Thanks!
Hi JD,
Alternatively, you may change the clock color to dark blue, which makes it much less visible
You can press the menu key on the clock screen and switch to either a scrolling list or a graph view, if the clock is bothering you
Thank you Alexander for the reply – I’ll try that – and thanks for creating this app!
FYI, the reason I don’t like looking at clocks is that it disturbs my sleep pattern. If I see the time, it sometimes makes me anxious that I have to get up soon and I end up not getting a full night’s rest
I am using the ZTE Blade and I am finding that the sleep episodes on the graph are very spiky and don’t flatten out, so it’s like this ////// not /——-__/—— if you get what I mean. Is this a problem with the calibration (last time I left it there for an hour) also I am finding that there are a bunch of user events on them, what are they? Becuase I didn’t add them manually.
I just want to say that I love this app and thanks very much for making it.
I’ve realised that the user events must be me hitting the screen or something accidentally.
I have made some changes to my smart timer config file, now I was wondering if there was a way to set it back to the default, I realise now I should have backed it up. Do you think you could possibly upload it and put a link to it in the Configure Smart Timer part of the guide as I think that may be helpful for others too. (the .txt.gzip file I mean)
Again I really love this app and am enjoying looking at the graphs that it creates, I am going to start using the gestures tonight.
Thanks
There should be a blank smart timer config file in the sdcard/application data/lucid dreaming app/config. Alternatively, delete the old config and the app may re-create it. I don’t remember if it requires a full uninstall
Thanks for the response, it did in fact re-create the file after it was deleted. I’ll be changing it to suite my history after tonight becuase I’ll have 7 days worth of history.
Again thanks for creating this app.
Your app works, I just forgot to change the name of the sleep episode. Now they display the sleep depth. The deeper the spike, the longer your episode of motionless sleep is. In the future, they will be turned into a smooth graph, showing sleep cycle peaks (REM) and valleys (deep sleep)
Hi,
I have a suggestion for a feature for your great app.
Is it possible to add an option to deativate the Android status bar and the clock during the time the app is running actively. The goal is to show only a black screnn where no LED is activated.
This is due to the problem of AMOLED Burn-Ins that may occur by using some pixels over a time with high contrast.
I have that feature planned for the next android release
The instructions don’t say how to use the app. Does the mobile device rest on the bed or on the nightstand, or under my pillow, basic setup questions like tis.
The device must maintain contact with your mattress. The precise position is not important. If you want consistency, keep it in the same place on your mattress each night.
Hi
I was wondering if there is the possibility to turn the screen off entirely, not just dim to 1%. I’m trying this app on my Asus Infinity tablet and I guess I’m just wary that the battery depletes much faster if the screen is on, even if it’s on 1%.
Is there a reason why it can’t be turned off?
When I was writing the app, it was impossible to run accelerometer while the screen is off. The device goes to sleep and turns off the accelerometer :/ Maybe things have changed now, I know that some successful sleep apps can work with the screen off.
How do i set up lucid dreaming app with zeo so that it plays a sound every time i get in a new REM state.
my lucid dreams usually are very short. it would be great if i could get another sound directly when im falling asleep again. Is there a way to do this without having to fill the whole night with 5 minute periods?
I would be very grateful if you translate it into Portuguese! I’m trying to lucid dream for 6 months =(
I love the idea of this app but it’s simply too confusing for me to use. I know you’re working on a guide, but in the mean time, can you answer a few questions so I can start using this?
1. I don’t typically wake from my dreams so creating a log isn’t productive. Rem sleep occurs in specific cycles, I suggest having just a generic cycle that does notifications at the typical intervals after sleep starts. Please tell me how to manually set this up.
2. Please create a generic, calm notification sound people can use if they don’t know how to download wav programs, move files to folder and rename files. I can do this on my computer easily but not on my droid. If you don’t have that can you tell me the easiest way I can do this? I’m stuck and not able to proceed and I have read your online suggestions for this.
If there’s anything else I need to be able to use this program, please let me know. I’m just thoroughly baffled.
Thanks
hey alex does this work on the htc one or other devices without an sd card? if not are you planning on changing that in future updates?
Right now no future updates for Android side are planned
Hi, Alex.
I am frequently using your APP and also try to find ideal devices hat work in detecting sleep phases. I used Zeo mobile, which is great but uses 2,6 GHz radiation for transferring the data. I don’t like that. Revently I bought the jawbone up wristband that works without Bluetooth and can detect sleep Phases. The developers also release the API. The riminder (Vibration of the Band) for waking me up during light sleep works! So maybe it is worth to look into?