Hey Miss H, welcome!
Well, I think it comes down to what you interpret a "dream" as. Is a dream one REM period in which there is a single story line, or plot, during the entire time? Or is a dream the entire REM period itself?
I think what you experienced was likely a combo - since dreams themselves are pretty ambiguous as to where one "starts" and "ends". Then there are those moments during the night in which we wake up, very briefly, and fall back asleep which we don't remember. We'll often fall right back into another dream.
So, in the 3 hours of sleep example, I think you probably had a couple awakenings during the two "dream periods". This essentially split up your dreams into halves.
For example,
lets say you spent 15 minutes in REM the first time, then 25 the next. Within the first period, you may have had a five minute dream, a short awakening, followed by another 10 minutes of dreaming. Your next REM period of 25 may have been split up in the same way, by a short awakening that you can't recall.
In all you had two sleep cycles (1 and a half hours each) - yet experienced 4 dreams.
I hope that sorta helps ya
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