When are you not capable of dreaming?

Do you dream if,
knocked unconscious?
Smell something that makes you fuzzyheaded sleepy?
etc?

Or can you only dream or achieve rem sleep via normal means of not being awake?

I can't find anything online about any of those questions.

if your knocked unconscious i don't think you dream, maybe have som hallucion but not really like a dream.
And i think you can dream if you get fuzzyheaded. don't see any reason why you should not be able to dream.

When asleep, you respond to stimulus. When unconscious, you don't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconsciousness

I don't see why you should able to dream while fuzzyheaded. You're not asleep, Your brain can't go into REM until after NREM, which takes a few hours.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Keitorin

When asleep, you respond to stimulus. When unconscious, you don't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconsciousness

I don't see why you should able to dream while fuzzyheaded. You're not asleep, Your brain can't go into REM until after NREM, which takes a few hours.

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What I meant by fuzzy headed was when you smell something that makes your head get warm and fuzzy and then you faint. Like chloroform

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sandform

What I meant by fuzzy headed was when you smell something that makes your head get warm and fuzzy and then you faint. Like chloroform

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Oh! Okay.

From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroform

Inhaling chloroform vapors depressed the central nervous system of a patient, causing dizziness, fatigue and unconsciousness, allowing a doctor to perform simple surgery or other painful operations.

Key word being "unconsciousness" so I'm thinking it's a no. :P

I fainted once and experienced something like a dream. Whatever you experience may not be classified as a dream, but the mind is always doing something, isn't it? Also we dream while in non-REM.

Dreaming in a non-REM stage of sleep is rare. The key question, as Keitorin pointed out, is whether or not someone is conscious. A sleeping person is actually conscious but is said to be in an "altered state" of consciousness. Someone who fainted, was knocked unconscious, or in a coma is truly unconscious. In such a state, I don't think dreaming occurs, at least from what I’ve read.

But I dreamed when I fainted. Or at least it was something similar if you don't want to call it dreaming.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AlexLou

But I dreamed when I fainted. Or at least it was something similar if you don't want to call it dreaming.

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That's interesting. Was it like a normal dream with a theme/plot and characters or was it like a bizarre, surreal memory of something happening? I've never fainted so can't speak from experience but when I was in high school me and a few friends would sometimes make each other pass out by pressing the chest until they passed out. I remember having weird dream-like memories after I came to. Pretty stupid thing to do but seemed fun at the time lol.

I actually wrote it down way back when it happened. Here it is:

"I experienced a short lapse of consciousness in which I had no awareness of the events which had previously occurred. It was like having an anxiety-ridden dream: self-awareness, an unpleasant feeling, and flashing images. I was somewhat aware that my shoe had fallen off and this made me greatly uncomfortable."

I wasn't out long enough to give the opportunity for anything like a normal dream. It was actually probably very similar to what I experience when I'm falling asleep. When I'm falling asleep I see images and have random illogical thoughts but no true dreams with plots. I remember that my thoughts about the shoe were very irrational.


Also I think it's only rare to remember dreams from non-REM. That doesn't mean that we don't have them.