This last night I’m pretty sure that I spotted one of those natural awakenings, since I woke up at 11:39 PM for no clear reason.
The funny thing was that I had gone to sleep just 2 hours earlier, and I had really vivid dream recall, enough for an almost 8 minute long round recording.
But aren’t those first dreams supposed to be really short?
It felt like a really long dream, actually.
I don’t think that time in dreams is the same as in WL. And I don’t think there is any way to prove that. You can know this just from your personal experience. During a meditation session time dissolves too and you lose the feeling of it. You can’t tell exactly how much time you meditated unless you looked at your clock. During meditation, as in dreams, you are inside yourself.
From time to time I have vivid dreams during these early REM sleep cycles too. I think there is a great link to brain chemistry here. It depends on what you eat and drink during the day and especially before bed.