Story-like organization of dream experience in different periods of REM sleep.
Journal of Sleep Research March 1, 1998 C Cipolli, R Bolzani, G Tuozzi
Dream reports from 16 subjects across an experimental night were analyzed using story grammar criteria. Reports from the second half of the night were longer and more complex due to more effective dream production, not better recall. This increase involved better organization of individual stories rather than more stories per time period. The findings raise questions about how dream production is re-triggered during REM sleep and whether themes across stories in a dream are interrelated.