Question: Hi,
Okay so for a long time now every night I have been experiencing really vivid, intense, and seemingly long dreams. Whenever these occur, I can not seem to wake up, even if the alarm goes off at 8am, I sleep in until 1 or so. In these dreams everything is so real. A lot of the times danger is invloved, or a threat to my life and the ones I love. When I finally wake up, I feel exhausted and can remember every detail. The nights where I dont dream intensly I can wake up in the mornings fine. I have always been someone who remembers 99% of my dreams.Is there a dream/sleep disorder that would cause this? The inability to awake during intense dreaming. My husband says sometimes he tries and tries to wake me but cant. And there are times i hear him, but because im dreaming i cant really wake up all the way, and go back to the same dream. Thanks!

Answer: Hey Whitney. I don’t know of any disorder or anything that would contribute to this, but with your super dream recall and dream-vividness I would suggest looking into lucid dreaming if you aren’t already familiar with it. It may hold some insights into this matter for you. We have an article on it here.

Thanks for your question and good luck,
Kevin