@kaminenmosher I think sometimes a dream you think you experienced in full is just a few brief moments which come with confected memories of what happened before. When you wake up you remember it as a continuous narrative but you didn't really subjectively experience most of it in real time.
@pieist My brain does this funny thing when I go to bed: as soon as I close my eyes, not asleep in any way, it immediately "replays" the atmosphere and situation of the last dream I remember having before I woke up that morning.
I'm very thankful that the "leeches covered in massive, defensive spikes" wasn't a dream from just before I woke up.
@kaminenmosher On the other hand last night I woke up in the very early hours, lay awake for at least half an hour, listened to a BBC radio programme on the bedside tablet, fell back to sleep and actually returned to the dream I'd been having before, vaguely where it left off. So I could be wrong about all that.