What's REM sleep? How do you dream?

After you fall asleep it generally takes about 90 minutes before you enter a deeper 'REM sleep'.`

REM sleep is when rapid eye movements happen and where your brain shuts off signalling to the spinal cord so your body becomes completely motionless.

REM sleep starts with a ‘recharge’ short phase and then a longer phase where you start dreaming. The dreams are likely a sorting process where your brain files away the memories of the day into longer term memory or throws them away. Imagine cutting down a video of you walking the dog from an hour to just 20 seconds of just 10 peak moments that go in 10 different cells for danger, cute, fun, tiring, play, meeting, etc. The filing process creates space for new memories the next day and allows you to keep the more important experiences for the next few days or weeks.

Valerian is known to aid this process of dreaming or 'filing' and help reduce mild anxieties. In particular, valerian is thought to help in the early phase of REM sleep where the brain re-allocates memories from the last few weeks to either longer term more permanent memory cell networks or throws them away. Similar to going through your stack of receipts and decided what needs to be booked as expenses, kept for guarantees or put in the bin. A low dose of valerian likely helps your brain put more of those recent receipts in the bin.

The wonderful thing about a little valerian is that you can use it as a long-term solution to aid sleep and dream .