past few nights i kept on having nightmares; fought with my mother, family problems, etc. if it was not a nightmare, i dreamed about weird stuff like going to kampong ayer, where the wooden bridge is automatic like floating horizontal escalator; there were some i just couldn't interpret; my brain couldn't solve the puzzle. there was this one time where i dreamed about about spirits hunting for me. but the thing was, i had a goodnight sleep; wasn't interupted with all kinds of noise, well rested. hmmm.. and i slept longer.

i studied 'sleeping' in one of my units; human biology. we studied about sleeping patterns, snores, diseases and when nightmares usually occur in our sleeping timeline. the first two hours is called 'deep sleep' or 'Non-random eye movement (NREM)' period where our mind just completely blank, not functioning and there is no random eye movements. the remaining hours is called 'Random eye movement (REM)' where our brain tends to process what we've learnt during the day, and our eyes keep on moving at this stage. some studies stated that this is where nightmare happens, our brain is so involved and heart beat increased. REM stage is not all that bad, if we have longer REM period, our brain is processing alot of information. thus having a longer sleep before exams is actually beneficial. one of the top students, about 10 years old kid, he was interviewed to give some advise on how to get good grades. this funny, energetic kid simply said "get as much sleep as possible weeks before exams" funny yet makes us agree to his suggestion. well, obviously he revised everything a month before. he must had enough sleep through out too because as he sleeps well, whatever he studied at school were revised when he was asleep. it was just that weeks before exam he extended his sleep time; go to bed early for instance.

another thing about sleeping pattern, we can't shorten the our sleep timeline. we can't keep on sleeping for 4 hours/day to experience NREM and REM efficiently. we need about 2 hours to experience the NREM stage and 4-5 hours for REM. so if we only manage to get 3 hours of sleep, our brain didn't manage to process what we have learnt, hence we won't be able to engage to the world efficiently.

though i'am experiencing the downside of long sleep right now - nightmares and weird dreams, at least my focus level is enhanced and energy level is high: i even remember what i've studied days before. maybe the nightmares is correlated with the stress that i'm currently encountering. possibly.