While dreams are what people most often associate with REM sleep, a person is not always dreaming while they are in REM sleep; dreams occupy approximately 80-90 percent of REM sleep. Also, not all dreams are REM sleep dreams. Studies from sleep labs have shown that dreaming can occur during wakefulness and NREM sleep, as well as during REM sleep. Generally, REM dreams are longer, more visual, more bizarre, and not as related to actual life events. Those dreams in which Elvis is skateboarding with your mother but it's not really your mother, it's really your cat, and suddenly Elvis has turned into Bullwinkle, although he still sings very well, is probably a REM sleep dream. Or incipient mental illness. NREM dreams tend to be shorter, more thoughtful, less emotional and more related to life events. These are the types of dreams in which you think about the Henderson-Hasselbach equation all night long. Also, nightmares and night terrors occur during NREM sleep.
Physiology and Neurochemistry of Sleep -Rosenthal
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