Why do I immediately dream when I go to sleep?

[sighingplant]

I thought you only dream hours later in your sleep when you go to REM sleep? This has been happening for the last few nights, now that I decided to get back into lucid dreaming. It's cool but I would like an explanation. Thanks. PS - How do I go back to mobile view lol?

[dolphin]

I'm not sure about the first half of the night, but the second half of the night, our periods of NREM sleep tend to be shorter, resulting in less of a wait for REM sleep.

[Darkmatters]

Some nights I'm in REM before I even hit the pillow - I've learned to recognize the feel of it. My head seems to be already swimming with dreamlike images and a dreamlike feeling, and as soon as I close my eyes I start getting dreamlets pretty quick - within a few minutes or sometimes almost immediately. This happens if you're sleep deprived or didn't get enough sleep recently. Basically when you're really tired and need some sleep. I think you need to experience REM every so often, and if you're not sleeping enough to get the required amount, you'll just start getting it even when awake. REM periods do continue for a while after you wake up too. This is why if you take a nap within a couple of hours (or maybe less, maybe like an hour and a half?) after waking you can drop immediately back into REM. The REM cycles themselves continue well into the waking period, and can begin before you're asleep. Really cool stuff! When I'm in that REM state I'll get dreamlets forming even while sitting upright or standing, if I just close my eyes for a moment. It can also happen in meditation if I'm tired enough.

[sighingplant]

I'm not sure about the first half of the night, but the second half of the night, our periods of NREM sleep tend to be shorter, resulting in less of a wait for REM sleep. I see, thanks for answering.

[sighingplant]

Some nights I'm in REM before I even hit the pillow - I've learned to recognize the feel of it. My head seems to be already swimming with dreamlike images and a dreamlike feeling, and as soon as I close my eyes I start getting dreamlets pretty quick - within a few minutes or sometimes almost immediately. This happens if you're sleep deprived or didn't get enough sleep recently. Basically when you're really tired and need some sleep. I think you need to experience REM every so often, and if you're not sleeping enough to get the required amount, you'll just start getting it even when awake. REM periods do continue for a while after you wake up too. This is why if you take a nap within a couple of hours (or maybe less, maybe like an hour and a half?) after waking you can drop immediately back into REM. The REM cycles themselves continue well into the waking period, and can begin before you're asleep. Really cool stuff! When I'm in that REM state I'll get dreamlets forming even while sitting upright or standing, if I just close my eyes for a moment. It can also happen in meditation if I'm tired enough. The previous night I got a full night's sleep, recalled a dream when I woke up and even slept in a little like a bum lol. Interesting, thanks for your indepth answer.

[Darkmatters]

like a bum lol. ... Or like a person who needs some more sleep? Sometimes we need more sleep, for various reasons. I don't agree with the standard idea that if you sleep in it means you're a bum. We should be paying more attention to the needs of our bodies and our minds, but we're taught to ignore them and even torture them to keep up with the Joneses.

[zelcrow]

Hey sighingplant, just thought I'd add something that seemed relevant I read in a book called The Brain and the Inner World by Mark Solms and Oliver Turnbull. In studying dreams, they found that 5-10% of dreams were reported as fully fledged dreams in NREM sleep and that they were "no different from the dreams of REM sleep." It then says, "He observed that you are most likely to have dreams in NREM sleep just after you have fallen asleep, during what is known as the sleep-onset phase of NREM sleep...These dreams occur before you have entered your first REM period (in fact, roughly 90 minutes before)."

[Darkmatters]

I've heard that before, that NREM can include dreams just like REM dreams, and I believe it's true, but not always. I've definitely experienced NREM dreams of a very different character - more like a stream of thought with just a single image, usually an overall pattern like a Turkish rug or something. And that's how NREM dreams are often described. Though sometimes it's more like a still image of a person or a place. And the thoughts in these dreams seem to be weird - a lot of anxiety associated, and a non-stop stream of bubbling thought, like you're desperate to think your way through something. Like if you've ever heard certain kinds of neurotic people babbling incessantly with a feeling of desperation. Or is that just me? (Actually I've read this is normal for NREM dreams.) So now my theory is that, if you're in need of REM-style dreams, you can have them during NREM, and the REM-like effects will be noticeable even while you're awake.

[TravisE]

I think I've heard of a sleep disorder where one tends to fall directly into REM when they go to sleep at the beginning of the night instead of NREM, but I don't recall the name. But unless it's always been happening to you chronically that's probably not what's happening. I've certainly experienced occasional quirks in otherwise normal sleep patterns; it's just the nature of the beast. Sleep deprivation or going to sleep too late sometimes seems to cause unusually early REM. I've also noticed that if I allow myself to almost reach sleep but then get interrupted (or interrupt myself) for something for a while, when I finally do go to sleep I'll often hit my first REM cycle much sooner than usual after falling asleep, almost as if the time from the initial distraction to finally fully falling asleep still counted as initial NREM time even though I wasn't actually sleeping. @Darkmatters: I've had a number of dreams I suspect were NREM dreams, and for me it seems very similar. Imagery can be involved, though it's usually fairly simple and static (and often somewhat dark) compared to that of normal dreams, and such dreams seem to be much more thought/emotion-predominant. I've also often had an impression upon waking that I've spent a lot of time apparently thinking about something during NREM, as if I was trying to solve some sort of highly intellectual problem (often a convoluted one of associations that make little waking-life sense, on the occasions I happen to actually recollect any details ), though it's not always clear whether these should be considered “dreams” in every case.