For my entire life, I recall having such long, insane, and vivid dreams. When I would tell people what I dreamed, they would reply that there was no way my dreams were that intense or detailed and for goodness sakes, they couldn't be that long. This happened allllll the time. All of it. Since grounding while sleeping, my dreams seem as intense and vivid as they ever have. Also since grounding, I wake up feeling like I WANT MORE SLEEP!!! NO IT CAN'T BE MORNING! I HAVEN'T SLEPT AT ALL! HOW HAVE FIVE (or 9) ALARMS ALREADY SOUNDED?! It is so jarring. I've always been a deep sleeper and just crave more and have said in the past that it was because I was so active during the night fighting dragons and surfing waves and frolicking in meadows. I get rolled eyes and am told I need more discipline.
The past months, I have made huge strides in forcing myself to have more restful evenings, leaving the laptop in the living room or not spending a lot of time in the while before bed organizing or doing stuff on the computer. I turned Facebook chat off because I did not need to keep getting into conversations with people while I was just on for a few to check a message. I do some stretches and try to go to bed earlier. Big strides for me. I definitely have better energy during the day thanks to all of the plants I've been eating and the extra hours of sleep (well, getting what I should be anyway). The grounding makes me feel like I am sinking into a deep sleep and breathe a little slower and more deeply. It is so hard to describe how it feels or changes I've seen. But this is only about sleep so I'm moving on! I told my doctor about the coma I feel like I'm waking from every morning and he suggested I check out that sleeping machine. (See previous entry)
It is so neat! I've only used it two nights since I had to wait for it to arrive and then charge the first night. Only time will tell if my suspicions are true, but I think I know why I have such a hard time waking up in the morning. I sleep so deeply and actively and have hardly any light sleep, especially in the morning hours. I think I'm always waking up from this deep or REM sleep and not a lighter part of the cycle. Groggy, jarred, neurons not firing as usual. Apparently the sleep machine senses it too because this morning it went off when I was in REM sleep. I think it gave up because I kept going in and out of REM and there was not really a "good" time for it to sound my alarm. (sidenote: this also meant I was SO sleepy still and ended up taking off the headband and sleeping for another hour or so. Everything seems so irrational when I first wake up and nothing makes sense or is logical. I'll try not to scream at my pretty and fancy new machine.)
Most people have about 20-25% of their sleep as REM or about 90-120 minutes for 8 hours. I am such an overachieving dreamer (didn't I always know that?). Nearly 40% of my sleep both nights was REM, and last night was 193 minutes for about an 8 hour sleep session. Most cycles of REM last 11-25 minutes for more, normal folks. As you can see, I had a cycle for 40 minutes and another about 50 minutes of REM. When it's time to dream, I am all in.
I shifted around in the bed for a few after putting on the headband and including that in the 4 minutes it took me to fall asleep, I was basically out as soon as I hit the pillow. That's another thing I'm used to. I cannot pray before getting in bed because it takes me little to no time to fall asleep. Basically the little bit of research I've done means I...need...more...sleep. Hard to admit that but it's what I knew I needed to shoot for anyway. I have been resigning myself to the fact that I will not get as much done in the evenings since I need to start going to bed earlier to get more sleep. Lots of time in REM could also mean I need more restful evenings and early sleep times. Looking forward to seeing how this week's sleep compares!
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