Dreams come fast

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I had a dream last night. I woke up, messed around a bit, and then went back to sleep. I slept for an hour. During that time I dreamt about the background music from Chrono Trigger. I then went to sleep again, sleeping for about an hour again, and had a long dream where I went on a tour of a hospital (for some reason), including the staff-only areas, where apparently the women had their changing area and place to sleep, and the library where the men had their dorm and slept (don't ask), and it turned out to have been restricted because we came upstairs and the thing had a contraption to lock behind us as we left. After that, I woke up.

I notice that I start to dream, even if I only sleep for 10 to 15 minutes. My understanding is dreaming that early in sleep is unusual, but I've had it for years. I believe it's called a very short REM latency. I hear it can be a sign of narcolepsy (!). It also seems to be associated with depression and schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (the latter of which I've been diagnosed with).

Is this also an aspie thing, or what? Should I call the doctor? What do you guys think?

Are you on any medication?

I have just changed mine and I seem to be remembering more.

I believe this is a known side effect of SNRI's.

I'm on Siterone, Estrace, lithium, and Latuda. The latter 3 are supposed to increase REM sleep latency--that is, make it take longer for you to start to dream. Siterone's effects are neutral, as far as I can tell.

Of course, I'm not troubled by my REM sleep latency, but with the medications that I'm on, I'd expect it to be longer than 15 minutes--it's normally 90-120 minutes.

I do not usually remember my dreams and the ones I did, I would have preferred not to.

In the last few weeks I now seem to have more, the onset is faster and they are nicer in content.

If this has been going on for a few years for you then I would say it's probably nothing to worry about.

I thought that if you had already been asleep recently then the transition to REM is faster.

I had something like this happen once if it was a dream. It could've been closed-eye visuals but I could've drifted off to sleep. I was lying on my bed and I just drifted off. The next thing I knew I was in a forest clearing at night surrounded by pine trees. It was morning in reality. I could see the moon changing phases extremely quickly and I just stared at it. Then it jumped out at me and startled me back into my room. That was the end of it.

Based on my last memory of what time it was and the time on the clock when I woke up the whole thing probably didn't last more than 15 minutes. It's possible I fell asleep and had a lucid dream in which case I started dreaming immediately in that instance. It's also possible that it was just a hallucinatory experience and probably a hypnagogic one.

Other than that one example I can't think of another time that I might have been dreaming immediately after falling asleep.

My dreams tend to come fast too.
I don't have any schizo-spectrum diagnosis (nor suspicion of having any), I'm not prone to depression, and the only medication I'm on are against asthma and allergies. + probiotics.

I've heard that if you sleep for 2 hours 4 times a day instead of 8 hours all at once your brain will adjust by making REM sleep come earlier. You need REM sleep which would normally mean you can't have an alternative sleep schedule where you only sleep for 2 hours at any given time. You'd never enter REM sleep that way if your brain didn't adjust.

Apparently very short REM latency can be induced.

I used to work on a sailing vessel and ^ this ^ is very true. This meant long periods of 2 hours on watch, 2 hours on standby and 4 hours off.

Another rule of working like this was to either nap for no longer than 20 minutes and ideally no less than 2 hours. In between these would often leave you feeling less than refreshed by your rest.

Not sure if it has something to do with AS (or something else), but I too start dreaming as soon as I close my eyes. Often dream pictures and sequences start coming up while I'm still awake (and aware of being awake), just drifting into sleep. I had this as long as I can remember, and I'm not on any medications.