Why REM Sleep is Crucial_ The Body's Reversible Paralysis

That's where the glymphatic system is truly kicking in. You will spend, and this is appropriate to do so the bulk of your night sleeping, when you are sleeping in light sleep. But that REM sleep is really important and it's a state where your body is reversibly paralyzed, your physical body. So you're acting out these dreams in your head, but your body's not responding in any way, shape or form. So that's when you're dreaming. That's rapid eye movement. That's what REM stands for. And then non REM would be the other stages, including deep sleep, when you're really deep down and the body's really doing the housekeeping. But a lot of repair and restoration is happening at that point in time too. And that's where, if you're getting adequate deep sleep is when you wake up feeling refreshed and when you wake up feeling right, and I got a good night's sleep. But it also is dependent, as you were mentioning, on how you feel going to bed that night. Do you feel safe? Do you feel like you could sleep well? Or are you almost hyper vigilant to the point where you're never getting into these deeper stages of restorative sleep or dreaming? And that's problematic. And a lot of my patients talk about this all the time. It's like I'm dreaming again, Doc. And they say it like they just won the lottery.