Thread: Putting Parts of dreams back together.

Well, technically, when you dream, it's just one long dream however you miss the gaps thus the idea that you had 7 different dreams when it was a long one

Originally Posted by BigFan

Well, technically, when you dream, it's just one long dream however you miss the gaps thus the idea that you had 7 different dreams when it was a long one

Uhh, no its not...

You actually wake up briefly (just a few seconds) between each sleep stage (you dont remember these times, at all) and you tend to wake up a bit more (these you could remember) after each sleep cycle (after a REM stage). Therefore, it's not just one long dream. If you exclude NREM dreams, then it could be safe to assume that you have approximately 6 dreams in a 9h of sleep night (one for each 90min cycle).

On the other hand, dreams late at night tend to be much longer than the ones earlier, thus it is possible that we forget parts and that makes it seem like many different dreams.

The safest way to divide your recall into many dreams is by waking at night (preferably after or towards the end of a REM stage), recording you dream along with the time and going back to sleep. The way I do it is to set an alarm 6h into my sleep, wake up, record anything i remember, go back to sleep, wake up either 1h30 or 3h later and record again.

This allows me to clearly separate my last dream from the one before. Note that waking after 6h of sleep to record with the intention of going back to sleep is an excellent opportunity to WBTB or attempt a WILD. Some say the best is to have an alarm every 1h30 of sleep (to catch yourself at the end of each REM stage) during the whole night. I disagree. I find that waking too often during the night ruins the sleep and anyway, the first few REM stages yield very little dreams, often lasting only 5-10mins.

Hope this helps.
Take care and good recall!