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VANDERBILT HON 182 - Dreams

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Slide 1Slide 2Slide 3Slide 4Slide 5Slide 6Slide 7Slide 8Slide 9Slide 10Slide 11Slide 12Slide 13Slide 14Slide 15Are they a product of your subconscious?Dream is a word used to describe the subconscious experience of a sequence of images, sounds, ideas, emotions, or other sensations usually during sleep, especially REM sleepThere is no neurologically agreed upon, biological definition for dreaming It is known that dreams are strongly associated with REM sleepBut there is a lot that is unknown about dreams and the purpose of dreams is interpreted in many different waysWhat is the purpose of dreams? Do we need to dream? Are dreams an interaction between your subconscious and conscious?REM stands for “rapid eye movement”REM sleep is a state of sleep in which brain activity is most like wakefulnessEugene Aserinsky discovered REM sleep in 1953 while working in the lab of his PhD advisor. Aserinsky noticed that the sleepers' eyes fluttered beneath their closed eyelids. He later used a polygraph machine to record the sleeper’s brain waves during these periods. Adult humans spend about a quarter of their sleep time in REM (approximately 90-120 minutes), much of it dreamingDuring a typical night, humans experience 4 or 5 periods of REM sleep (short periods at the beginning of the night and longer periods as the night progresses)Amount of REM sleep varies with age- a newborn baby typically spends more than 80% of total sleep time in REMPhysiologically, certain neurons in the brain step, known as REM sleep-on cells, (located in the pontine tegmentum), are particularly active during REM sleep, and are probably responsible for its occurrence. The release of certain neurotransmitters, the monoamines are completely shut down during REM. This causes REM atonia, a state in which the motor neurons are not stimulated and thus the body's muscles don't move. Lack of such REM atonia causes REM Behavior Disorder where sufferers act out the movements occurring in their dreams.Heart rate and breathing rate are irregular during REM sleepBody temperature is not well regulated during REM sleepLucid dreaming occurs when dreamers realize that they are dreaming (lucid dreaming can occur with varying levels of awareness and dream control)The dreamers are sometimes capable of changing their dream environment and controlling various aspects of their dream. The dream environment is often much more realistic in a lucid dream, and the senses heightenedThe realization is usually triggered by the dreamer noticing some impossible or unlikely occurrence in the dreamTwo types of lucid dreaming: dream-initiated lucid dreaming and wake-initiated lucid dreamingDream-initiated lucid dreaming: Starts off as a normal dream until the dreamer realizes that they’re dreamingWake-initiated lucid dreaming: The dreamer goes from a normal waking state directly into a dream state with no apparent lapse in conscousnessTime passage appears to be the same during lucid dreaming as when awakeThere are “How to” books on lucid dreaming, websites focused on teaching people the “art and science” of lucid dreaming, advertisements stating- "Now instead of wasting up to Eight Hours Every Single Day with normal sleep,Aby mastering the art of lucid dreaming I am now able to enjoy truly mind blowing experiences every night!” (www.lucid-dreamer.info)Lucid dreaming is very appealing to people and many try to learn how to become lucid dreamers and “control” their dreamsIs this possible?Dreams provide clues to the nature of more serious mental illnessSchizophrenics, for example, have poor-quality dreams, usually about objects rather than peopleAccording to one study, "good dreamers," people who have vivid dreams with strong story lines, are less likely to remain depressed It is thought that dreaming helps diffuse strong emotions. Dreaming is believed to be a “mental-health activity“However, no one has yet been able to say that REM sleep or dreaming are essential to life or even sanityMAO inhibitors, an older class of antidepressants, essentially block REM sleep without any detectable effects, although people do get a "REM rebound"—extra REM—if they stop the medication. That's also true of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac, which reduce dreaming by a third to a halfThe Ontogenetic Hypothesis of REM sleep states that this sleep phase is particularly important to the developing brain, possibly because it provides the neural stimulation that newborns need to form mature neural connections and for proper nervous system development. Studies investigating the effects of Active Sleep deprivation have shown that deprivation early in life can result in behavioral problems, permanent sleep disruption, decreased brain mass (Mirmiran et al. 1983), and result in an abnormal amount of neuronal cell death (Morrissey, Duntley & Anch, 2004). REM sleep is necessary for proper central nervous system development (Marks et al. 1995). Further supporting this theory is the fact that the amount of REM sleep decreases with age, as well as the data from other speciesZhang hypothesizes that the function of sleep is to process, encode and transfer the data from the temporary memory to the long-term memory: NREM sleep processes the conscious-related memory (declarative memory), and REM sleep processes the unconscious related memory (procedural memory)Numerous studies have suggested that REM sleep is important for consolidation of procedural and spatial memories.A recent study (Marshall, Helgadóttir, Mölle & Born, 2006) shows that artificial enhancement of the REM sleep improves the next-day recall of memorized pairs of wordsFreud proposed that dreams protect sleep, which might be disturbed by the arousal of unacceptable wishesFerenczi proposed that dreams may communicate something that is not being said outright (subconscious thoughts)There have also been analogies made with the cleaning-up operations of computers when they are off-line. Dreams may remove parasitic nodes and other "junk" from the mind during sleep.Dreams may also create new ideas through the generation of random thought mutationsDreams may also regulate mood. Hartmann says dreams may function like psychotherapy, by "making connections in a safe place" and allowing the dreamer to integrate thoughts that may be dissociated during waking


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