Rem Sleep-Do Our Dreams mean anything
Highlights
Dreams have always fascinated us. After all we spend more than a quarter of our lives asleep and a total of several years dreaming. For thousands of years people have tried to interpret their dreams. They regarded dreams as divine signs that pointed to future events.
Dreams have always fascinated us. After all we spend more than a quarter of our lives asleep and a total of several years dreaming. For thousands of years people have tried to interpret their dreams. They regarded dreams as divine signs that pointed to future events.
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After many centuries dreams were seen as anything other than message from above. After 17th century dreams began to be looked as a reflection of the individual’s inner life and personality. People began to write down their dreams and search for meaning in them. In the 18th century dreams were interpreted as images from the eyes, for some others dreams were mirror images of the soul.
It was in the early 20th century that the meaning of dreams began to be studied on a systematic basis. Studies revealed dreams as the expression of certain drives and wishes that are repressed in our waking lives. Researchers have been able to identify 3 specific kinds of sleep-light sleep,deep sleep and REM SLEEP.REM sleep is the period when dreaming takes place. It may be hard to believe but animals have dreams too.
Humans share with other mammals and birds the capacity for REM sleep-the period when dreaming takes place. Other living creatures such as fish amphibians and reptiles do not display the same type of brain waves as mammals and birds. Studies showed that animals whose childhood lasts the longest also have the longest dream phases. Chickens and cows dream for about 25 minutes, chimpanzees for 90 minutes, cats up to 200 minutes. In birds dream phase are few and very short lasting between 5 and 15 seconds. In humans, REM sleep lasts about 100 minutes per night.
Stages of sleep
The first phase of sleep is characterised by a constant slowing of the brain waves. At this stage, the sleeper still responds to sound and is relatively easy to waken. The body then begins to calm down and slips into the deep sleep phase, in which the eyes do not move, but muscle tone or tension remains as it was. Finally in REM sleep the brain becomes reactivated and sends out successions of rapid waves. The eyeballs move under the closed lids-hence the term RAPID EYE MOVEMENT and the general muscle tone falls. At this point the sleeper is deep in dreaming phase and is difficult to waken.
This phase is repeated roughly every 100 minutes and lasts approximately 10-20 minutes. REM sleep is also called paradox sleep, since the brain is active but the body is completely relaxed.
For an adult, a night sleep consists of about 75-80 % non REM sleep and 20-25% REM sleep. In a foetus on the other hand REM sleep takes place for almost about 90% of the night. This has led researches to conclude that REM sleep phase contributes to the structural maturation of the brain during the first few months of life. The six basic facial expressions characteristics of humans-joy, fear, surprise, anger, sadness and disgust are all displayed by young children, but most often during sleep. These expressions are the result of intensive dream experiences.
Learning while asleep
Dreaming is the time when the mind expresses elements of the human collective memory-together with the personality traits of the sleeper. This means that ancient patterns of behaviour can be activated according to the genetic makeup of the sleeper, allowing the brain to learn something new each night. Specialists generally agree that dreaming is a kind of learning tool, it is the time when the long term memory stores the information collected in the course of the day. During the day when we are awake consciousness hinders the neuronic activity, since extensive areas of the brain are busy processing the flow of data and impressions from our senses.
Sleep walking
Sleepwalking may sound bizarre but it is very real phenomenon. People who walk in their dreams take dangerous journeys upstairs or over rooftops. Next morning they remember nothing of their sleep walk. Sleep walking occurs not during REM or dreaming sleep, but during the phase of deep sleep, when the brains activity is low. Consciousness is disabled but the muscles receive coordinated commands from the movement centres. Causes of sleepwalking may include genetic predisposition, stress etc.
Dreams of a busy mind
Anyone who learns a lot is bound to dream a lot. An increase in REM sleep is typically observed in students during examination times, when the memory is strongly utilised.
If a person is woken as soon as they have begun to dream, then their learning capacity will soon diminish. If dreaming is interrupted for a few days they then their ability to think about events in the future is weekend. Such individuals are no longer able to anticipate an expected sequence of events.
While you may still have a bad dream from time to time you really needn’t worry that this is a sign of things to come because at times dreams are linked to childhood experiences and express unfulfilled wishes or desires. Dreams serve to process the many events, emotions and discoveries of our daily lives. We recognise in our dreams the unconscious wishes and fears that we repress during the waking hours.
Dreams help us to record new situations and ideas and to process them with help from the emotions. In this way we learn how to handle similar situations more efficiently in the future.
By Lavanya Kallakuri
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