Thread: Can you have six dreams in one-and-a-half hours?

Funny thing happened to me today when I took a nap...

I ended up immediately having dreams. And not just one... six of them. I woke up betwen some of them. Two were lucid. I'm not sure whether some of the last four dreams mightn't have been part of the same dream; but I got up to use the bathroom between two of them, so I know there were at least four dreams (two lucid and two non-lucid). And the subject matter changes drastically from one dream to the next--from torture to a peaceful dream about shopping!

I'm not sure how this is logistically possible-- I mean, there can't be time for more than one REM period during a one-and-a-half hour nap, can there?

The full Dream Journal account of the event

Any ideas? I've always been a rather prolific dreamer, but this is ridiculous.

Well although actions in dreams usually happen in real time, it's possible to have very compressed dreams. You may get false memories of dreams (maybe you thought that you were flying for an hour when only a minute actually passed), or you could have dreamt in fast motion, but your mind slowed them down while you were experiencing it.

Indeed. I would be surprised if any of those dreams took longer than ten minutes, real-time. Some could have happened in ten seconds. I'm just not used to having that many (even short ones) within so short a time. Still, I thought it took time to get to the stage of sleep when you're having true dreams (rather than the disconnected stage-one sort).

I might've gone straight back to REM when I went back to sleep... I didn't attempt to wake up any further than it took to move; my brain stayed pretty dormant, as it usually does during night wakings. Maybe it's possible to go back to REM immediately if you haven't woken up enough?

I'm pretty sure that's how WILD and WBTB work. By waking you've interrupted a REM cycle, but it continues when you go back to sleep, and hopefully you can stay aware enough to become lucid.

Ye i made a post about having like 5 or 6 of lucid dreams in 45 minuites it was well weird the moment i dropped of i was in dream after dream and i woke up after i had them and i was like woah. I also have really vived lucid dreams when i sometimes take a nap for like an hour or so after college 8)