Thread: I'm new here. Hello all.

Originally Posted by NocturnalDreamer

So does that mean that if a normal person were to wake up at around 5-6 hours into his/her sleep, that individual would be able to recall the latest dream then? or would he/she be able to recall all the dreams in that 5-6hours period?

To be honest it varies, I personally have problems remembering any dreams if i sleep the whole night away.. by morning I may remember the latest, but usually.. I kinda remember all of them at once? But im not able to separate the dreams, and it just leaves me in a very very hazy state, where nothing makes sense, I just cant remember enough of one for it to make sense. There have been nights where I remember a bunch at once as well, very clearly.

Originally Posted by NocturnalDreamer

My sleep pattern is really irregular, sometimes I sleep at 1am, sometimes at 2am, and occasionally at 5am, giving myself only 1 or 2 hours of sleep. Would that affect my dream recall? As in do I need enough sleep to build up a strong recall?

You dont necessarily need to get 8-10 hours of sleep every night to have vivid or lucid dreams, its just that as you sleep longer at night, the REM phases of your sleep cycle get longer as the night progresses. Each REM phase per cycle will get longer and longer, so how long you sleep has a direct effect on the length of your rem phases.

In English, each "cycle" of sleep is ~90 minutes. Its not exact, differs per person slightly, and is affected by your sleep pattern. The first four stages begin with mainly NREM sleep (Possible to dream, never as vivid as REM, harder to recall), and then the fifth one will be a short REM cycle (Usually around 10-15 mins the first time around at night). Many many people naturally have whats called a brief awakening in between each cycle, and take that time to record any dreams they can. Its also possible to wake up immediately before your REM phase, so you have a high chance of slipping into an LD soon after.

Originally Posted by NocturnalDreamer

But how does your body knows that you're gonna sleep for only a few minutes? I mean, would it be able to distinguish between a nap and a sleep?

I dont know the science behind it, but through personal experience I find that when you are very physically and mentally tired, for example at the end of a day of work and stuff, not a day where ya sit at home on your ass . Your body will naturally just want to crash at night, and its just harder to remain conscious because your just so tired. You need to sleep. Your not trying to fall asleep, your body is telling you to go to bed. On nights like this without even thinking about it the first 5-6 hours of my night are shot, if i attempt to induce a LD i fail 9/10 times because im just tired, Its to hard to keep my mind active when I naturally want to fall asleep so bad. After I do a WBTB in the middle of the night, im not near as tired as I was before, because I've still gotten the majority of my sleep.. only missing 3 hours (Which is alot, but not enough to prevent me from staying awake.)

This leaves me at a spot where I could either get up and stay up for the whole day, or go back to bed for a few hours.. either way really. This again is my personal experience. Others wont be able to get back to sleep, some wont even hear the alarm.. find your own time . Long story short if i choose to stay up, later on in the day I will have the urge to have a nap, no matter how awake I think I was earlier. My body just naturally wants to finish what it started. I have a very repetitive sleep pattern though, I rarely get less then 8 hours, or more then 10. So when I DO get more or less, my body knows it.

You dont really know your going to sleep for a few minutes, its just that often the only reason you have a nap is because you didnt get enough sleep the night before, aka interrupted your sleep cycle. I find as long as I get my 8-10 hours, I could do as much physical/mental activity as I wanted during the day and not need a nap. But if I didnt get enough sleep, I will want to lay down for a nap even if I barely move that day, I'm just tired. When you go lay down for a nap, your body doesnt need to crash like it does after a full day, but you still can fall asleep fairly easy.

Again, this usually means I will make up for the latter 2 hours of my entire sleep cycle in this nap, which is almost ALL REM sleep, a huge chunk of it anyways. Not only that, because im not as physically/mentally burnt out as I would be right before bed at night, I find it alot easier to control the transitional state. Im much more aware of whats happening mentally, but my body is still tired.

If you choose to work through the tiredness, often the next night you will have a "REM rebound" effect. Where your sleep cycle tries to catch up.

The main page for this website goes into detail on what happens in the phases of sleep.. In the end, the longer you sleep defiantly affects how much REM sleep you have. Which in turn can directly result in an increase in more lucid/vivid dreams. Its not that you dont dream outside of REM, its just much less vivid usually, which makes it alot harder to remember.

http://dreamviews.com/sleepstages.php

*Sorry bout the long reply, I dont know why this happens everytime I make a post, I just babble on and on lol..*