Waking too Quick

I am a pretty light sleeper. I wake very easily from the slightest noises around my house (phones, TV, family chatter, etc). This morning my old man opened my door to let my cat in my room.

Now I was in a deep, sound sleep, and found that literally the second he touched the door to open it, I was wide awake and aware of what was happening. Only thing is, it happened so quick I completely lost track of my thoughts/dreams I was having/had, and hard as I tried, could not seem to remember a single memory or frame or anything related to the dreams I had had that night, which I have been able to do in the past (sometimes even hours after waking up). Talk about being pissed off!

I know for a fact I had many dreams becasue I could feel the...how do I put this..dream hangover? Dream buzz? Almost like it had all happened minutes ago, and someone erased it from my memory, but left behind the ''dream feeling'' I always have when I wake up.

Well my question is, why upon waking very quickly, do I lose out on wonderful dreams? Was I in the middle of REM or something? Any advice on keeping this from happening again or perhaps salvaging any bits or pieces I could use to puzzle it all back together would be most helpful.

Oh, and I do know about keeping my eyes closed and not moving and all that which I did try with no success.

Happy Dreaming ;)

Well, I suggest a dream journal.

Writing down anything you remember will help. And on the mornings you can't remember anything keep the dream journal near you. That way, if anything during the day reminds you of it, you can write it down.

I think that the reason we forget things when we wake up like that is our minds are now too busy. We went from a state of relatively low brain activity to our neurons firing like crazy. What we were thinking about gets lost.

An up side to waking up so easily, could be DEILDs. They may be easier for you, if you can keep your body still, and your mind awake, it should be simple.