<p>There are two possibilities. One is that we do tend to wake up more at the climax of dreams, and that somehow our dreams can sync up with external input like an alarm clock so that the climax of the dream occurs at the same time as the alarm going off. The second is that this doesn't actually happen; the alarm is just as likely to go off at the climax of the dream as it is at any other point.</p>

<p>If the second situation is true, then why do you end up feeling like you always wake up at the climax of the dream? One explanation is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias"><strong>confirmation bias</strong></a>. This is an established bias of human memory, in which we selectively remember events that confirm our ideas, and neglect the events that disconfirm them. In this situation, you have the idea that you always wake up at the climax of dreams, so your memory is biased towards times where you actually did wake up at the climax of dreams. However, there are likely many times where you woke up not during the climax of the dream, but these are less memorable because they don't fit your expected pattern.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-11T01:55:57.410Z
A third possibility is that we don't actually wake up immediately when the alarm goes off. Our immagination then has to present to us some very persuasive event (imagery, sound, etc.) to keep the mind from realising that the alarm is real, thus making it the Climax.
icosamuel
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-10T13:00:55.853Z
2015-09-10T14:11:21.747Z
2015-09-10T14:11:21.747Z
Josh
<p>I'd reckon this can be due to the chance of you remembering the dream when you wake up. When your dream was mundane (i.e. emotionless), you probably have no reason to remember it - when awake. (see <a href="http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=489116&amp;resultclick=1" rel="nofollow">The neuropsychology of REM sleep dreaming</a> for more on the noradrenergic and serotonergic influences on sleeping)</p>

<p>While sleeping, only small time-periods (<a href="http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=489116&amp;resultclick=1" rel="nofollow">usually 90 minutes</a>) you're actually dreaming, which can result in short of (speculating) time-gaps between periods of the dream. When you were dreaming of something climatically, you can (just as well) leave your dream state, without you noticing it (<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2869.2004.00398.x/full" rel="nofollow">Waking up properly: is there a role of thermoregulation in sleep inertia</a>. So when the alarm bells ring, you think you were just in a climaxical (word?) dream, while in real life the clock went on.   </p>

<p>I must say, this sounds like an interesting research question, although it might be hard to test, because you need the right kinds of dreams (perhaps TMS can provoke them during sleep). Since dreaming happens during REM sleep, we should are able to tell whether you dreaming (regardless of whether or not you will remember later), based on your brain waves (or <a href="http://web.mst.edu/~psyworld/sleep_stages.htm" rel="nofollow">using EOG</a>). </p>

<p>Finally, since dreams are pretty familiar to us, they are just as mysterious, so one might think of loads of reasons for it (<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2814941/" rel="nofollow">Dreaming and the brain: from phenomenology to neurophysiology</a>, <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763405801654" rel="nofollow">or</a>, <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763400000373" rel="nofollow">or</a>)... Worth while thinking of it</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-12T20:08:11.080Z
I'be updated my answer... but the answer giving by the one who asked the question only made a reference to a Wikipedia page (on an apparent onrelated piece of information )... how is that worse than none? But this site (subpage to be exact)is new to me, so I'm not familiar with the answering bit
Danielson
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-10T13:33:02.267Z
2015-09-11T08:36:03.747Z
2015-09-11T08:36:03.747Z
Danielson
<p>From my personal interest and research into dreaming over 12 years, I ask you to consider that <strong>the climax of a dream may actually be caused by the alarm ringing.</strong> </p>

<p>There has been long standing hypothesis that real life content gets incorporated into one's dreams. This phenomenon is rather unpredictable, and an example would be seeing lightning strikes in a dream in response to real life light flashes.</p>

<p>From personal experiences - I've frequently been puzzled by waking up  a second or so ahead of perceived alarm going off. I hypothesize that this perception is false, and the alarm has been going off for some time before I awoke. <strong>Due to the high intensity of an alarm, I hypothesize that the awakening process somehow influences the intensity of dream imagery.</strong> </p>

<p>Regarding the confirmation bias - it can also play a part in your question. Once again, from anecdotal evidence, there are many occasions where the dream just fades into blackness and a person slowly gains the sensation of laying in bed (no alarm). </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-17T16:23:15.213Z
2015-09-17T16:23:15.213Z
Alex Stone
<p>I know that it probably has something to do with the fact that our dreams didn't really end at the same time our alarm clock rang, our brains just make us think so for some reason. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-09T13:17:42.393Z
Why do you think that we "always wake up at the climax of our dreams"? I frequently wake up in the middle of the dream, sad that I will never know how the story ends. Even without an alarm.
rumtscho
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-09T18:59:05.463Z
This might be better asked on Cognitive Sciences.
anongoodnurse
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-11T19:32:52.220Z
Most of my dreams don't have any obvious climax--nor any coherent "storyline" at all. The ones where I do wake up *due to* the dream are usually when I am scared awake.
Chelonian
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-23T20:50:51.853Z
Without paging through all of the other answers, and at the risk of becoming the person who simply echoes what several others have already said...
My simple answer is that if this is truly "always" your experience, then it likely has more to do with your own personal sleep patterns ("sleep hygiene") than it does a generalized thing that everyone experiences. Me, I have often been in the situation as well, but I have just as frequently been in a position to wake myself up in the middle of an intense dream; only to realize it WAS a dream. Next, checking the clock, noticing I have several hours l
Pamela Goman
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-18T22:31:55.480Z
I wonder this as well. It's the middle of the night, am sleepy enough to continue, there is no alarm clock or other thing but I woke up at a very exciting scary moment in my dream that had been building for quite some time or perceived like that. (Reason to come to this post in the first place). No satisfying answers here at this moment. So, _why indeed_? Perhaps without the __always__
theking2
<memory><sleep><dreams><bias>
Why do we always wake up at the climax of our dreams, even when it is an alarm that wakes us?
rodrigochousal
# Why do we always wake up at the climax of our dreams, even when it is an alarm that wakes us?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-09-09)

I know that it probably has something to do with the fact that our dreams didn't really end at the same time our alarm clock rang, our brains just make us think so for some reason.

**Tags:** memory, sleep, dreams, bias

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Why do you think that we "always wake up at the climax of our dreams"? I frequently wake up in the middle of the dream, sad that I will never know how the story ends. Even without an alarm.  
> **username_2**: This might be better asked on Cognitive Sciences.  
> **username_3**: Most of my dreams don't have any obvious climax--nor any coherent "storyline" at all. The ones where I do wake up *due to* the dream are usually when I am scared awake.  
> **username_4**: Without paging through all of the other answers, and at the risk of becoming the person who simply echoes what several others have already said... My simple answer is that if this is truly "always" your experience, then it likely has more to do with your own personal sleep patterns ("sleep hygiene") than it does a generalized thing that everyone experiences. Me, I have often been in the situation as well, but I have just as frequently been in a position to wake myself up in the middle of an intense dream; only to realize it WAS a dream. Next, checking the clock, noticing I have several hours l  
> **username_5**: I wonder this as well. It's the middle of the night, am sleepy enough to continue, there is no alarm clock or other thing but I woke up at a very exciting scary moment in my dream that had been building for quite some time or perceived like that. (Reason to come to this post in the first place). No satisfying answers here at this moment. So, _why indeed_? Perhaps without the __always__  

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## 3 answers

### Answer by username_6 on 2015-09-10. Score: 8

There are two possibilities. One is that we do tend to wake up more at the climax of dreams, and that somehow our dreams can sync up with external input like an alarm clock so that the climax of the dream occurs at the same time as the alarm going off. The second is that this doesn't actually happen; the alarm is just as likely to go off at the climax of the dream as it is at any other point.

If the second situation is true, then why do you end up feeling like you always wake up at the climax of the dream? One explanation is [**confirmation bias**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias). This is an established bias of human memory, in which we selectively remember events that confirm our ideas, and neglect the events that disconfirm them. In this situation, you have the idea that you always wake up at the climax of dreams, so your memory is biased towards times where you actually did wake up at the climax of dreams. However, there are likely many times where you woke up not during the climax of the dream, but these are less memorable because they don't fit your expected pattern.

> **Comments:**
> **username_7**: A third possibility is that we don't actually wake up immediately when the alarm goes off. Our immagination then has to present to us some very persuasive event (imagery, sound, etc.) to keep the mind from realising that the alarm is real, thus making it the Climax.  

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### Answer by username_8 on 2015-09-10. Score: 4

I'd reckon this can be due to the chance of you remembering the dream when you wake up. When your dream was mundane (i.e. emotionless), you probably have no reason to remember it - when awake. (see [The neuropsychology of REM sleep dreaming](http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=489116&resultclick=1) for more on the noradrenergic and serotonergic influences on sleeping)

While sleeping, only small time-periods ([usually 90 minutes](http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=489116&resultclick=1)) you're actually dreaming, which can result in short of (speculating) time-gaps between periods of the dream. When you were dreaming of something climatically, you can (just as well) leave your dream state, without you noticing it ([Waking up properly: is there a role of thermoregulation in sleep inertia](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2869.2004.00398.x/full). So when the alarm bells ring, you think you were just in a climaxical (word?) dream, while in real life the clock went on.

I must say, this sounds like an interesting research question, although it might be hard to test, because you need the right kinds of dreams (perhaps TMS can provoke them during sleep). Since dreaming happens during REM sleep, we should are able to tell whether you dreaming (regardless of whether or not you will remember later), based on your brain waves (or [using EOG](http://web.mst.edu/~psyworld/sleep_stages.htm)).

Finally, since dreams are pretty familiar to us, they are just as mysterious, so one might think of loads of reasons for it ([Dreaming and the brain: from phenomenology to neurophysiology](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2814941/), [or](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763405801654), [or](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763400000373))... Worth while thinking of it

> **Comments:**
> **username_8**: I'be updated my answer... but the answer giving by the one who asked the question only made a reference to a Wikipedia page (on an apparent onrelated piece of information )... how is that worse than none? But this site (subpage to be exact)is new to me, so I'm not familiar with the answering bit  

---

### Answer by username_9 on 2015-09-17. Score: 2

From my personal interest and research into dreaming over 12 years, I ask you to consider that **the climax of a dream may actually be caused by the alarm ringing.**

There has been long standing hypothesis that real life content gets incorporated into one's dreams. This phenomenon is rather unpredictable, and an example would be seeing lightning strikes in a dream in response to real life light flashes.

From personal experiences - I've frequently been puzzled by waking up a second or so ahead of perceived alarm going off. I hypothesize that this perception is false, and the alarm has been going off for some time before I awoke. **Due to the high intensity of an alarm, I hypothesize that the awakening process somehow influences the intensity of dream imagery.**

Regarding the confirmation bias - it can also play a part in your question. Once again, from anecdotal evidence, there are many occasions where the dream just fades into blackness and a person slowly gains the sensation of laying in bed (no alarm).


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