Stages of Sleep

The stages in your sleep cycle are organized by the changes in specific brain activity.

STAGE 1:

• Light Sleep
• Non-rapid eye movements
• (NREM) 
• Muscle relaxation
• Lowered body temperature 
• Heart rate slows down

Your body is preparing to enter a deep sleep. 

STAGE 2:

• (NREM)
• Body temperature decreases more 
• Relaxation of the muscles decrease more as well
• Immune system works on repairing the day's damage
• Endocrine glands - secrete growth hormones (Put hormones in the blood)
• Blood is sent to the muscles to recondition 

You are now completely asleep. 

STAGE 3:

• (NREM) 
• Deeper sleep

STAGE 4:

• Eyes move back and forth erratically (Like you're watching something from underneath your eyelids)
• REM SLEEP - 90-100 minutes after you fall asleep
• Blood pressure rises
• Heart rate speeds up 
• Breathing increases
• Brain activity increases
• Involuntary muscles become paralyzed 
• Your emotions are being tuned and played with

Dreaming usually occurs in this stage, and if you wake up during this stage then you will most likely remember your dreams or most of them. 

These 4 stages repeat themselves during the night as you sleep. 

While they repeat, you will spend less time in stages 1, 2 & 3 and most in 4.

http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamresearch.htm

Your Sleep Cycle

There are 4 stages of the sleeping cycle. There is a fifth stage but that fifth stage does not repeat itself throughout the night like the others so it's not part of the "Sleep cycle". 

The sleep cycle repeats itself about 4-5 times per night but can go up to 7.

You can dream in any of the 4 stages of sleep but the most vivid and memorable dreams occur in the last stage of sleep (REM). 

This is why you can have several different dreams with a variety of different themes of each. 

But you usually dream near the morning when you are soon going to wake up. 

You may wake up and think back and not remember having any dreams but you did, you just don't remember them. 

You have several dreams a night, and you dream anywhere from 1-2 hours. 

http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamresearch.htm

Falling into Darkness

Have you ever had a dream where you were falling into darkness? And you just kept
falling &
falling &
falling &
you just weren't hitting the bottom?
Well.
Falling dreams are a common type of dreams that many people have.

Ever heard of the myth, "You will died if you do not wake up before you hit the ground during the fall?" Well it is a myth, you will not die if you don't wake up before you hit the ground.

Falling in your dream represents insecurities, instabilities and anxieties. May be reflecting from a relationship or in your work life.
Keep your head high and stay positive not negative because it gives you negative thoughts and that can cause falling dreams.

Your falling dreams can reflect a sense of failure such as failing at your job, school, or love. Your self-esteem has been lowered.

According to Freudian theory, falling dreams indicate that you are contemplating giving into a sexual urge or impulse.

When you are in your falling dream, you're usually in your first stage of sleep. The symptoms include muscle spasms in arms, legs, and anywhere else.
If you remember ever sleeping and then all of a sudden jerk or twitch and you wake up with a rush and your heart is beating fast?
Well that is because you were in the middle of a falling dream and the muscle spams caused the twitch which can wake you up.

http://dreammoods.com/cgibin/fallingdreams.pl?method=exact&header=dreamid&search=fallingintro