Before we delve any further into the techniques behind lucid dreaming, it is important to highlight important general aspects of sleep, particularly the sleep stages involved in dreaming. In this post, we'll briefly cover all stages of sleep and their role in the dreaming process.
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There are two basic types of sleep: NREM (non-rapid eye movement; also known as SWS, or slow wave sleep) and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Of these two basic types, there are five distinct stages that occur during a full night of sleep, all characterized by different types of brain waves. The first four stages of sleep are SWS characterized by NREM. Of interest to us is the fifth stage, known as the REM stage of sleep, which is the primary stage in which dreaming occurs.
One complete sleep cycle lasts around 90-100 minutes, with around 4-5 sleep cycles occurring during a full night of sleep. In the beginning, the REM stage of sleep lasts only about 10 minutes. As the night progresses, a person stays in NREM sleep less and less and in REM sleep for longer periods of time, up to about one hour in length. Thus, a person can potentially have up to four or five dreams of increasing length in a single night.
Below is a diagram highlighting some of the different characteristics of each stage of sleep.
1 comments:
Hello Ami,
You discuss in this article good about sleep stages.
There are many stages of sleep. In different stage people feel different experience. so we have to know about sleep stages. You can read it at stages of sleep
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