Saturday-Sunday 20-21/1/2018

This was a "good as it gets" sleep and fairly typical of the current cycle as the measurements go, although it was unusual in the number of dreams I experienced, one being particularly long, vivid and upsetting that had me wide awake at 04:20, so much so that I considered going downstairs for a mug of tea to "get over it".

In the event I wasn't awake enough for long enough. Sleep hormones in my blood don't feel particularly pleasant - my muscles are sore and ache and I feel "ill" - which of course makes you want to stay in bed! I went back to bed after a wee and went on to have more dreams which were "neutral" in experience, and gratifyingly, I stayed in bed until the 07:00 alarm.

Though it was not a sleep that felt nice due to the bad dream, the memory of which is still going round my head, I realize that this sleep was still good for me. In dream sleep, unrelated experiences and emotions are "cross-referenced" to make temporary new connections. These lead to increased insight and understanding, although sometimes at the cost of temporary distress!