If you feel that your dreams last for so long it's a good sign you're entering the REM phase of sleep many times during the night. This is a good sign, although it may feel a little exhausting if your dreams are bombarding you with messages.
At times, dreams may occur during other stages of sleep. However, these dreams tend to be much less vivid or memorable. The length of a dream can vary; they may last for a few seconds, or approximately 20–30 minutes. People are more likely to remember the dream if they are awakened during the REM phase.
There are certain exceptions that the dream time extends for longer, especially during lucid dreams where physiological variables are ideal for prolonged dreaming. Therefore, theoretically, the longest dream occurs about 2 hours long, but in practice it is rare, and most dreams last for about 45 minutes at most.
Experts aren't sure, but there's evidence that suggests dreaming plays a role in supporting brain functions that occur while we're awake, such as processing thoughts, memories, and emotions. So, is dreaming a sign of good sleep? Researchers believe it either reflects or contributes to healthy sleep.
Dreams can last for a few seconds or they can last for up to two hours. They feel longer because our brain works differently when we're sleeping than when we're awake!
Indeed, the longest recorded period of REM (dreaming sleep) is one of 3 hrs 8 mins by David Powell (USA) at the Puget Sound Sleep Disorder Centre, Seattle, Washington, USA on 29 April 1994.
The longest dreams happen in the a.m.
The longest dreams—up to 45 minutes long—usually occur in the morning. There are certain things you can do before you go to bed to control your dreams.
While recalling a dream suggests that you've reached a REM sleep cycle at some point during the night, it doesn't necessarily mean that you've had more or less of that important stage of sleep than if you don't remember dreaming.
Dreams tell you what you really know about something, what you really feel. They point you toward what you need for growth, integration, expression, and the health of your relationships to person, place, and thing. They can help you fine-tune your direction and show you your unfinished business.
A total non-REM–REM cycle is 90 minutes; this pattern repeats about five times over the course of a night. As the night progresses, however, non-REM stages shorten and the REM periods grow, giving us a 40-minute dreamscape just before waking.
Sometimes the dreams we have seem so real. Most of the emotions, sensations, and images we feel and visualize are those that we can say we have seen or experienced in real life. This is because the same parts of the brain that are active when we are awake are also active when we are in certain stages of our sleep.
“Since dreams are thought to primarily occur during REM sleep, the sleep stage when the MCH cells turn on, activation of these cells may prevent the content of a dream from being stored in the hippocampus – consequently, the dream is quickly forgotten.”
The results indicate that although pain is rare in dreams, it is nevertheless compatible with the representational code of dreaming. Further, the association of pain with dream content may implicate brainstem and limbic centers in the regulation of painful stimuli during REM sleep.
Waking up Crying From a Dream
The sensations you feel while sleeping and the emotions you experience before bed may cause you to wake up crying. If you wake up crying from a bad dream, that is your body's response to the weight of the suppressed emotion.
It is possible to dream during a ten minute nap even though R.E.M. phase comes after 50 minute in the sleep cycle because anyone can sleep during a ten minute nap because you are sleeping and your eyes are closed and R.E.M. stands for Rapid eye movement and you can alsoways move your eye when you are asleep to show you ...
Sharing your dream with someone, when it was previously kept a secret, allows your brain to re-wire the idea that what you are doing was already scary. New research shows that fear, once felt, can be removed from your mind.
Answering the flying dream:
Dreaming about flying symbolises… Freedom and independence: Flying in a dream often represents a sense of liberation, breaking free from limitations, and experiencing a newfound sense of independence. It may reflect a desire for freedom in your waking life or a sense of empowerment.
So, “if you're dreaming about [someone], it's not likely they're dreaming about you as well.” As dreams are all about the self—your feelings and behaviors—if you're dreaming about a specific person in your life, then it's likely there's some aspect of them that is currently at work in your life, Loewenberg explains.
The good news is that it's completely normal not to remember much of your early years. It's known as infantile amnesia. This means that even though kids' brains are like little sponges, soaking in all that info and experience, you might take relatively few memories of it into adulthood.
Lucid dreaming is when a person becomes aware that they're dreaming while they're dreaming. When a person lucid dreams, they know that the events in their dream aren't really happening, but the experience still feels real.
How Long Do We Dream Each Night? Researchers estimate that the average person spends about two hours dreaming each night. REM sleep periods early in the night generally last about 10 minutes and gradually increase in length throughout the night to a maximum of about one hour.
According to Dr. Watson, even if you fall asleep as soon as you lay down, it'll still take you between 70 and 90 minutes to start dreaming. But, normal sleep latency—aka how long it takes you to fall asleep—is 30 minutes after turning out the lights.
Dreaming may be a cultural universal, but it is clear that some individuals recall few or no dreams over many years—and that these individuals suffer no ill consequences from their apparent inability to dream. Dream recall may not be necessary for mental, physical, or cultural health.