You need a few more reading sourcesFredToo wrote:I know that you are right about that, but man have we got a lot of other people to convince !
What are Dreams?
Dreams happen during the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep . In a typical night, you dream for a total of 2 hours, broken up by the sleep cycle. Researchers do not know much about how we dream or why. They do know that newborns dream and that depriving rats of REM sleep greatly shortens their lives. Other mammals and birds also have REM sleep stages, but cold-blooded animals such as turtles, lizards and fish do not.
REM Sleep and Dreaming
REM sleep usually begins after a period of deep sleep known as stage 4 sleep. An area of the brain called the pons--where REM sleep signals originate--shuts off signals to the spinal cord. That causes the body to be immobile during REM sleep. When the pons doesn't shut down the spinal cord's signals, people will act out their dreams. This can be dangerous because acting out dreams without input from the senses can lead a person to run into walls, fall down stairs or worse. This condition is rare and different from more common sleepwalking and known as “REM sleep behavior disorder.”
The pons also sends signals to cerebral cortex by way of the thalamus (which is a filter and relay for sensory information and motor control functions deep in the brain). The cerebral cortex is the part of the brain involved with processing information (learning, thinking and organizing). The areas of the brain “turned on” during REM sleep seem to help learning and memory. Infants spend almost 50 percent of their sleep time in REM sleep (compared to 20 percent for adults), which may be explained by the tremendous amount of learning in infancy. If people are taught various skills and then deprived of REM sleep, they often cannot remember what they were taught.
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From a link that I posted which is referenced in that link from "rested gal".
"REM Sleep is often called the “Dream State.” However, more dreams actually occur in NRS. Non-REM sleep periods are short, faint impressions that contain no emotions and are rarely remembered. “Non REM dreams resemble the ordinary process of thinking” (Lahey,1998, p144). Night terrors, sleepwalking and talking occur in Non-Rem sleep (Lahey,1998, p148). Considering all the above information, how do we determine which sleep period is better?"
Den
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