Awake but asleep?

Something really odd and interesting happened yesterday afternoon while I was taking a nap. I was in the middle of a dream that involved my dad and we were at some vacation house somewhere in the woods.

My room is right about the garage, so whenever the garage opens I usually hear it. Well, I can remember clearly hearing the garage door open but I was still in the dream. I then remember my dad talking to me in my dream, and the dream was going on but at the same time I knew my dad was coming up the stairs and opening my door to look in on me, and by the time he was at my door I knew he was there. I awoke about 2 seconds before he opened my door.

I am usually a pretty heavy sleeper and things like a garage door opening will not wake me up. Are we somehow more prone to waking if we take a nap later in the day compared to the sleep we have at night?

Napping is much lighter sleep than nightly sleep. When napping, you don't even go through all the phases you go when going to sleep at night. I've understood that it starts straight with REM-sleep, and that's why it's also possible to WILD when having a nap.

It's also known that sensations from the outside world reflect your dream. If you hear something, you will hear that in your dream too, and usually your brain will make something up to adjust that sound in your dream.

This may be a bit confusing post, but I hope you got the ideas.

I have read that the brain makes things up to explain outside sounds in dreams. My experience was a little different though: when I heard the sound of the garage door, I knew what it was. It wasnt until after I woke up that I realized "Hmm, I knew the garage door opened but I was sleeping." Nothing in the dream made that sound, it was like I had three seconds of consciousness and realized the door was opening then slipped back into the dream, but I don't recall any rift near the end of the dream.

It was kind of like my conscious mind that knows the sound of the garage door was working just enough to let that information slip through into my "dream mind." Very interesting stuff.