I've had some issues with that as well, with night sweats and "waking up from a war", but I have a feeling it's because one of the meds I take in order to actually fall asleep has a potential side effect of "some pretty damn wild dreams", which I can never seem to remember afterwards.
Have you tried keeping a dream journal? Writing down what you can remember immediately after you wake up helps dream retention, I've heard. And personally, even when I can't remember much , often the act of writing down the dream uncovers more than I initially remembered.
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I tried this thing called wake-induced lucid dreaming last night. The gist of it is that you go to sleep, but use mental tricks(counting and the like) to stay fully conscious as you fall asleep, and as a result go straight into lucid dreaming. I expected either it wouldn't work(as it's supposedly really hard) or it would(and yay).
Instead, I kinda got stuck in between being awake and asleep. I've read that your body is supposed to go sorta numb as it falls asleep, and I did notice that... in the lower half of my body plus extremities. No matter how long I tried, I couldn't get it past that point. I never quite fell asleep(during those weird two hours, at least, the rest of the night I got a normal night's sleep), but things got weird anyway. Sorta like a bit of dream creativity got lodged in my lucidity. I figured out the secret to making friends, for one thing.
The trick is that other people want to make friends with you too. All you have to do is be open to the possibility.At some point, I decided enough was enough and opened my eyes. Immediately I got hyperactive and felt like I had already slept eight hours... kinda. My first words were reflexively "holy cow".
I don't know what happened last night. I think I'm going to try the method again and see if I can get it right this time. Feedback would be nice, though.