REM cycles?

I was wondering approxamitely how long each stage of REM lasts as they progress and get longer. and how long between the stages.

The reason for this is i want to be able to create an 8 hour long music file that will have sound effects that will trigger an RC at a certain time after breaks of scielence.

thnx.

Well, every person is different, and furthermore, every night is probably different for every person. Experiment away with your music file, but it's going to be difficult at best to actually coordinate it with your REM periods. Here are some general guidelines, though:

http://science.education.nih.gov/sup...info_fig04.gif
As you sleep, two things happen to your sleep cycle.
First is that it speeds up. So while it typically takes around 90 minutes to reach your first REM stage of the night, each cycle will take less time until you are going back into REM quite frequently.
Second is that you spend more time in REM sleep - that is, the individual REM stages last longer. So while the first REM stages of the night tend to be quite short, by the early morning you are actually spending the majority of your sleep in the REM stage. REM stages typically last between 5 and 45 minutes.

awesome dub! and with diagrams!

so here's what i got from it I will skip the first 2 cycles because they are too short to try and catch. I will set it to go off after these amounts time after i fall asleep

4h 50min - stage 3
1h 20 min -stage 4
1h 30min -stage 5

and i will adjust it to see what works