Hi Annie -
Researchers tell us that, in order to remember being awake during the course of a night, we have to be awake for at least seven minutes! That’s a long time isn’t it? This means - if you were quick and tired - that you could get up and use the bathroom during the night and not even remember it - if you fell back asleep right away. A lot of people also tell stories of answering the phone and having conversations with people in the middle of the night - and not remembering a thing about it the next day!
What happened with you at camp is totally normal. You did have a confusional arousal - in that you “woke up” briefly - enough to sit up for a moment or two in bed - but then you plopped back down to sleep. Chances are that, even though you sat up in the bed, you never really were fully awake. During a confusional arousal - you never fully wake up.
I’ll tell you one other interesting thing about confusional arousals: They occur out of non-dreaming sleep. Essentially, it’s harder for us to wake up out of deep, non-dreaming sleep than it is for us to arouse from a dream. As you probably know from experience - sometimes you wake right up from a dream in the middle of the night. When you woke up at camp, I’d put money on it that you “woke up” out of deep, non-dreaming sleep.
Back to the original question
Back to list of parent's page dreams
