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Michael Breus, PhD:

Okay, so there's a couple of different issues here. Number one, is it bad to be conscious in the middle of the night? No, it's perfectly normal. Um, number two. Sleep is a perception okay and people need to know and understand what that, what I mean by that is if you woke up four times, is that bad sleep? No, probably not. Uh, do you think it's bad sleep and then internalize that and then feel bad because of it? Probably so. And so what people have to know and understand is what is normal for sleep, first of all, and then they have that perception of that. An example is, you may sleep six and a half hours tonight and say well I'm an 8 hour girl and I feel horrible. I'm a six and a half hour guy. I actually always have been, and so, if I sleep six and a half, I feel great. But the perception is very different. So again, looking at sleep, you have to understand, what does it mean to you, and thereby understand what's normal. So, if you wake up in the middle of the night several times that's perfectly normal thing to do. You fall back to sleep within 3 to 4 minutes, you're in good shape.