Recall of dreams

[Julie]

Hi, there's been a thread on here talking about dreaming and recalling dreams. I protested a post that said dreams cannot be recalled if the sleeper is awoken overnight, but it has continued to bother me as it just didn't sound right, but at the same time I also felt bad contradicting another poster who is usually very up to date on most things here. Well, I just did a little research here (love Google and discovered what might be an answer.

Studies were done to test different theories of dreams, Alzheimer's, etc., and in particular one study researched what happens to people who spend a fair amount of time in learning on a given day. They found out that for these people, if they were awakened repeatedly overnight after having spent a day learning (whatever) prior to the night of interrupted sleep, they had a hard time recalling what they had learned, but not necessarily any dreams themselves. I wonder if this could be what the 'dispute' was about in the thread above, and if a misunderstanding arose regarding just what the dreamers recalled - the dreams vs study prior to sleep.

[jnk]

My understanding is that frequent arousals can negatively impact REM and can lessen the amount of it. That may have been the point of the poster.

It is also my understanding that an arousal, and especially a full awakening, may make it more likely that a particular dream, especially the one that is interrupted, or one that occurred recently, will be recalled. That is only one theory.

I could be wrong on all counts, though.

Here is some interesting reading:

http://books.google.com/books?id=4EV_Iy ... q=&f=false

[Muse-Inc]

http://books.google.com/books?id=4EV_Iy ... q=&f=false

Dream salience...dream kinesthesthia...ohh, such juicy new terms to play with!!! Thanks JNK!

[Husky Lover]

I explored the posts because like some, I suddenly seemed to stop dreaming when I began cpap therapy. After a few months I'm now back to recalling dreams. Don't know that I ever stopped. Just that I now will recall some. Seems to have restarted when my AHI started to break below the magic 5.0 mark.

[Uncle_Bob]

So if we dream in stage 5 REM and each REM cycle takes 90 mins I should be recalling 5 dreams a night with an 8 hour sleep
i don't think thats gonna happen. I can maybe recall one and on a rare occasion two.

[jnk]

Dream salience...dream kinesthesthia...

Yep. Those are good ones:

http://books.google.com/books?id=V2fDiR ... 22&f=false

I guess if the first thought through our mind upon awakening is "what's this hunk of plastic doing on my face?" or "what was my AHI last night?" and we pop our eyes open and lean over to check our numbers, we may be less likely to remember our dreams, eh?

[jnk]

Put another way by Dr. Steven Y. Park in a podcast:

"When you wake up while you’re dreaming in REM sleep, you’ve remembered your dreams vividly. . . . Only because you tend to wake up more frequently when you are dreaming, do you remember your dreams more vividly. Some people wake up as they begin to enter the dreaming stage, so they never dream at all."

--http://www.sleepguide.com/profiles/blog ... resistance

[Muse-Inc]

...I guess if the first thought through our mind upon awakening is "what's this hunk of plastic doing on my face?" or "what was my AHI last night?" and we pop our eyes open and lean over to check our numbers, we may be less likely to remember our dreams, eh?

Precisely what I was thinking too. While I regularly dreamed vividly in technicolor yrs before apnea and a few months post-CPAP, when I started having events again, I no longer dreamed. My PSG showed no REM...and my associates wondered why I was nuts . . . so much sleep, so little deep sleep, so little/no REM.

Now, with new mask & reduced pressure, fragments of dreams come to me at odd moments but that morning routine of sit up, hold mask to face, unclip, hit off, remove mask and set aside...just sorta makes those fleeting images fade faster than ice at the height of Summer. Even tried just lieing there and allowing recall but alas no ephemeral images dance thru my mindscape. I am sure I am dreaming with those odd fragments rising to awareness so I take this once again as a sign of improvement...still having events tho . I so want an APAP.

[roster]

Put another way by Dr. Steven Y. Park in a podcast:

"When you wake up while you’re dreaming in REM sleep, you’ve remembered your dreams vividly. . . . Only because you tend to wake up more frequently when you are dreaming, do you remember your dreams more vividly. Some people wake up as they begin to enter the dreaming stage, so they never dream at all."

--http://www.sleepguide.com/profiles/blog ... resistance

I think that is the key. If you don't wake up you remember little to nothing of the dream.

Man I had a sweet one this morning. A friend (deceased) and I were riding our bikes at night and it was raining. We were trying to ride to a certain building and we could not figure out how to cross at a dangerous intersection.

BTW, riding at night and/or in the rain is wonderful if you can find a place without motorized traffic.

Monday morning I dreamed I was with a group on business in Europe. It was quite a pleasant trip and I saw on the street a dear colleague who passed away in February of this year. I pointed him out to the group. He looked fine and seemed to be enjoying himself, but we could not make contact with him because he was dead. Then today at lunch a very strange thing happened. I was by myself and getting a quick sandwich at a busy deli. I saw another single looking for a seat and signaled him to join me at the table. He was from a neighboring town and was on his way to a business meeting. We introduced and chatted. Very quickly we realized we had some common things in our previous career. He told me he once worked for five years in a certain office in a small village in Germany. The office was adjacent to the office I frequently visited. It was also on the street where I saw my deceased friend in the dream. Very strange convergence of events.

Another point, it is a myth that we dream only in REM. It is normal to dream in all stages of sleep.

Dreaming of friends and bike rides is nice, but I prefer dreams of sex. Anyone know how to get them to flourish?

[Muse-Inc]

...Another point, it is a myth that we dream only in REM. It is normal to dream in all stages of sleep.

I learn something interesting every time I visit! Thanks BigR!

[jnk]

It is normal to dream in all stages of sleep.

True that.

But "dreaming is more frequent and more complex in REM compared to NREM."--Sleep Medicine: Essentials and Review
by Teofilo L. Lee-Chiong, April 2008.

http://books.google.com/books?id=s1F_DE ... avlinks_s#

[rws]

Dreaming of friends and bike rides is nice, but I prefer dreams of sex. Anyone know how to get them to flourish?

LOL Rooster! I hear ya and hate when they end....such a disappointment I kinda feel guilty when the wife asks how I slept???

Rick