REM sleep?

Question

If you wake and remember your dreams, does that mean you got a good night's sleep because you got to the REM stage? What if you wake and don't remember dreaming? Is it just that you have forgotten your dreams?

Answer 1

I remember reading about a study conducted by some college somewhere, where they specialize in studying sleep. The news article said between men and women, men seem to have a tendency to forget their dreams within minutes of waking up, while women seem to retain memory of their dreams better. The study concludes that men's memory retention may possibly work differently from women.

When you wake up and your mind is sharp, you feel revitalized, and you had 8 or more consecutive hours of REM-stage sleep, then its safe to conclude you had a full nights' rest.

Answer 2

If we remembered every dream we had, we would go mad coping with so much information. We resolve alot of issues while sleeping, when the issue is resolved, it is filed away, and there is no further need to look at it, so no need to remember it. Some dreams don't have any special meaning, and are just so much nonsense, blowing off steam in a creative way, and once those are done, there is no real need to remember them either. Some dreams are about something you are trying to work out, and trying to point out issues to you to examine, these are dreams we are most likely to remember, as the issues they are trying to point out are unresolved, and they are trying to get your attention. You go through the sleep stages several times a night, starting with light sleep, on to deeper levels, then coming up to a lighter level for rem.......