Sunday, February 12
(Psycho lesson) I woke up to this question.
Why is it that sometimes we are unable to remember one of those dreams we had?
The answer is not because it is ‘like that’ or ‘that your memory failed you’.
It is just that we actually go through 5 different stages when we sleep.
It depends on which stage of the sleep cycle that you wake up. If you wake up too early, you may not even have started dreaming.
Stages 1 & 2 are considered relatively light stages of sleep and people awoken from these 2stages seem to report not having slept at all!
So, if you are those people who reports having not dreaming that often, your sleep usually occurs within the above stages 1 & 2.
Wait, it doesn’t mean that moving on to stages 3 & 4 will have dreams. You are so wrong. Stages 3 & 4 are known as delta sleep, our deepest sleep. This is the hardest time to wake sleepers and when they are awakened, they are usually confused and disoriented. (Most of us actually belong here.)
The stage where you actually start to dream is stage 5!!!
Stage 5 is also known as REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Dreaming usually occurs at this stage. The longer your REM period of sleep, the more likely you will report dreaming.
If you are awakened during your REM sleep, your dreams will tend to be more vivid, longer, motorically animated and emotionally charged as compared to a non-REM sleep where your dreams may seem vague or you may not even remember.
HOWEVER, if you sleep too long such that your sleep cycle moves out of stage 5 and repeats the entire process of stages 1-5 all over again. You may just forget about your dream.
Therefore, the answer to my question is even if you want to dream, you will also need to have that proper timing of your sleep!
Haha!