My understanding of SRPE and sleep cycles

I've been piecing together research on sleep phases to try and make sense of my SRPE. Here's my current understanding/theory.

It seems that during 6-8 hours of sleep, we go through cycles of NREM and REM sleep.

NREM is the deep, physically restorative sleep.

REM is where the brain processes emotions and memories.

The pattern is that early cycles have long NREM and short REM, while the last part of sleep is dominated by longer, more intense REM periods.

Here's my theory for SRPE: We all get erections during REM. For someone with SRPE, this normal process becomes painful and wakes you up.

A key point on severity: If your SRPE is really bad, you can wake up from the painful erection even during the short REM phases of the first sleep cycles. In a less severe case, you might mostly be awakened by the more intense, longer REM periods in the final hours of sleep.

I think this happens through two main pathways:

The Physical Path: Pelvic floor issues (tight muscles). The normal erection pushes against this tension, causing pain.

The Mental/Neurological Path: This is my main focus. If you have depression, anxiety, or chronic stress, I believe your brain prioritizes or intensifies REM sleep to try to regulate emotions. This results in more intense and longer REM phases. A more intense REM phase, in my theory, fuels a more rigid and powerful erection, which can then trigger the pain (especially if there's any underlying physical tension).

This creates a brutal loop: SRPE causes sleep deprivation -> increases stress/anxiety -> leads to potentially more intense REM -> maintains SRPE.

This might explain why some people get SRPE from physical causes (like tight pelvic floor) and others from mental/nervous system causes (like after starting an antidepressant, which heavily affects REM).