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Others experience the paralysis without the sleeping part, which can be terrifying in its own way. In people who don't experience the limb paralysis element of stage four, this is also when they might sleepwalk or act out their dreams – though this is admittedly more rare. Nightmares will only occur in REM sleep, where the mind is at its most active. "For the average person out there, that means nightmares will more likely happen in the second half of the night," said Ford. It typically takes up to an hour and a half of sleep before you settle into REM sleep, so although it may feel like you're dreaming as soon as your head hits the pillow, you likely aren't. For most people, their limbs become paralyzed as they sleep.

It's here that you're able to dream, with your brain activity escalating and your eyes moving rapidly. Stage four is what's known as rapid eye movement sleep, or REM sleep.Your body regenerates cells, your immune system strengthens and your heart rate is at its slowest. In this, the body is fully relaxed, delta brain waves are present and there is no eye movement. Stage three is the deep sleep stage, known as slow wave sleep.Stage two is light sleep, where you've settled but haven't quite sunk into the depth of sleep required to initiate tissue growth, system repairs and cell regeneration.

Stage one consists of the brain and body slowly settling into sleep – your heart rate regulates, your system begins to calm and it normally lasts for up to five minutes.

These stages are distinguished by different brain and body activity, and signify the depth of sleep that the person is experiencing – typically measured via an electroencephalogram, or EEG. What is actually happening in your brain?Īccording to CNET sister site Healthline, the human brain generally cycles through four stages of sleep over the course of a night. If you only get the occasional nightmare – maybe once a fortnight or so – it's usually fairly easy to pinpoint why. If it's something repetitive related to a trauma you've been through, there's probably no interpretation required." Possible nightmare triggers "You might be spending your time on something that's not really that important. "Because what do you see with dreaming in general, right? It's pretty nonsensical." "The general interpretation is, something's not quite right, and that's why you're getting nightmares, so I'd probably stick at that kind of level," he said. "I think it's most likely that the days I have nightmares I would have seen something that alerted me of my traumas, even if I hadn't given it a second thought at the time.Īccording to sleep psychologist Dan Ford of Auckland's Better Sleep Clinic, trying to interpret dreams once you've woken up can only be helpful if it makes you feel comforted. "All your memory consolidation happens in your sleep," she said. … I've also had nightmares about sexual assault and violence."Īs a psychology student, Simpson is well familiar with Freud's theory of dreams, wherein they represent unconscious desires and feelings that the brain needs to process. "The art gallery bit was very specific and strange. "I had a dream once that my dad beat me with an aluminum baseball bat in an art gallery," she said. It can be incredibly confronting subject matter.

She describes her nightmares as rarely sensical and largely traumatic, with violence and graphic experiences the norm. "They are always vivid, so I tend to marinate on them unintentionally over the next few days until the trauma fades a bit."

"Sleep is always worse straight after a nightmare," she said. From sleep paralysis through to sleepwalking, parasomnias can have a much more serious effect on sleep quality and waking life.īut when these nightmares start to sabotage your quality of sleep and plague your mind within your waking hours, that's when there's cause for concern.įor over 10 years, psychology student Gemma Simpson has experienced disruptive nightmares that routinely affect her sleep and day-to-day life. For the latter camp, consistent nocturnal episodes are a type of parasomnia, or disruptive sleep disorder. According to Sleep Education, an estimated 50% to 85% of US adults report having occasional nightmares, with up to 5% of the US experiencing regular nightmares as a result of nightmare disorder. Terror and panic are common associates to the nightmare-plagued brain, which can linger as the mind reconciles its horrible dream experience with the sudden return to reality. They're invasive – vivid, terrifying dreams that condemn us to a late-night purgatory, half-asleep and shaken in the darkness.