Some questions about dreams?

Question

How can you describe your state of being when you dream? Do you dream only during REM sleep? If you're not dreaming all the time while asleep, what is your state of conscious?

If somebody could shed a little light on this matter, it would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

sorry to answer your question with a question but I have always wondered what the state of sleep is called when you are hearing noises around you, like the tv or someone in the room talking,  and they enter into your mind like a strange half real, half fake dream.

Answer 2

The traditional dreaming that you are talking about here usually occurs during REM sleep.  You are dreaming most of the night but you don't necessarily remember it.  There are also lucid dreams that occur outside of the REM sleep.  

Answer 3

Dreaming only occurs in REM sleep.  The way we process the dreams are different from person to person, but, to us it seems like an all night movie, when it's just a few minutes here and there that we mentally piece together to make sense to us in our waking state.  It's like we have an editing room in our brains and it is piecing together all of the snips of dream here and there, so then when we are awake and "recall" the dream, it seems like an eight hour self made film.  Remember also that we are still taking in stimuli while we are asleep, and those add to the dream as well.  Ever sleep with the TV on?  You get some crazy dreams from that.  One night I was asleep and all of a sudden this woman came up to me at the train station and said "Hi, my name is Dan Weston, and I am here to talk to you about something very important, mobility."  I was like, WTF is going on up in here?