I've noticed that I consistently experience vivid, visceral dreams when taking brief mid-day naps (usually ~20m at 8h after waking). They're not bad, just intense.
I wonder why—maybe I just remember them better during day? My night-time dreams are usually mild or absent.
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Just took a nap and had a pretty vivid dream as well. But my guess is that it’s that you’re waking up shortly after. We go through a few dream cycles during the night but usually only remember the last ones
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Here's a test you can do: one day, nap on an empty stomach. Consider your dreams. The next day, nap on a FULL stomach. Consider your dreams. Then, compare and contrast. I've noticed that, for me, whether I'm napping on a full or empty stomach influences how/whether I dream.
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Interesting—it's basically always on a full stomach for me. Will try.
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I have a very similar experience with mid-day naps (similar duration and time of day).
One factor that may or may not relevant is that I'm often
slightly caffeinated during the mid-day naps.
i.e. caffeinated but sleepy
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Ah, interesting. I think that's probably not the case for me: I arrange my caffeine intake to minimize caffeine during nap time (i.e. have coffee immediately on waking, no more until after nap @ ~8h). Of course with half-life at 6h some would still be there though…
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I’ve assumed that, if I need a nap, it’s actually my brain insisting that it *needs* to shut down and do it’s thing. And it’s thing is to go into freewheeling invention while it processes data.
So nap dreams are intense because the naps are for the purpose of dreaming.
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Feynman talks about this (daytime napping) as how he got into lucid dreaming, in Surely You're Joking.
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Ah—right, I'd forgotten!