Enhanced discontinuous reception (DRX) techniques are discussed for networks configured with some combination of contention-based spectrum. Various aspects provide common or separate DRX configurations across all carriers and cells. Durations may be adjusted to increase the probability of a user equipment (UE) remaining active for the base station to secure the shared channel. Physical layer commands may also be transmitted for UE to enter sleep mode dynamically in order to further save power. Additional triggering signals sent via the physical layer or layer 1 signaling, such as fast wake-up signals or fast sleep signals, may either wake the UE for monitoring the contention-based spectrum of the secondary carrier or cause the UE to enter a sleep mode after monitoring is over. Further aspects provide to initiate DRX procedures in contention-based spectrum in response to detected CUBS or other channel usage signals.