Monday 9 June 2014

Dreams collapsing and going into futile-cycles when you have had enough sleep

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I tend to wake naturally around 05.00h; and if I sleep beyond this time then I recall that my dream narrative has usually finished, and the dream has gone into a more-or-less futile cycle of near repetitions.

Thus it seems like I have had 'enough' sleep - that whatever necessary work is being done in the brain during dreaming (REM) sleep has been completed; and after that point, things just go round and round until I awake.

I presume, here, that the dream at this late stage of sleep is a by-product of this primary brain work - because the primary quality of such 'futile cycle' dreams is their triviality, boringness, annoyingness - they feel like a pointless waste of time; therefore I guess they are just an epiphenomenon generated by some more fundamental process and purpose.

This is one reason why I want to get-up early, as soon as I awake - because sleeping later is just a matter of footling-around in these purposeless and repetitive cyclical dreams...

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2 comments:

George said...

Could you elaborate on how many hours total of sleep you're talking about? I have found getting up before sunrise leads to a better day, but I still tend to need 8+ hours.

Bruce Charlton said...

@I split my sleep so I can synchronize with the rest of the family (otherwise I would be in bed *very* early).

I have a nap sometime in the evening if possible (it usually is) - go to bed for about 45 minutes (sometimes I do this late afternoon - before the evening meal).

This enables me to stay awake to about 11.30 and then wake up naturally and get-up between 5-5.30 (when I usually start work on 'the blog').