Psychology
Abstract
The paper focuses on the four stages of sleep. The stages happen after long periods of deep sleep, which is usually the last stage. It attempts to establish a relationship between Rapid Eye Movement and Dreaming. Dreams occur during Rapid Eye Movement when an individual is sleeping. Dreaming results from a section of the brain known as the pons. The Pons area of the brain forms the origin of the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) signals. The area stops signals from reaching the spinal cord, which makes the whole body to be immobile (Wilkenman & Plante, 2010, p.2). The statement explains why people feel immobile whenever they attempt to make movement when they are dreaming.
Whenever the ponses fail to stop the signals from reaching the spinal cord, most people tend to perform actions when they are dreaming. For instance, there are those people who talk or walk during sleep. They do this without the input of the other sections of the brain, which makes them walk into walls, talk to no one in particular, and run their bodies down the stairs without knowledge (Campbell, 2008, p.2).
Dreams have meaning. They are one way through which the human brains bring together all the memories that people have. Dreams consolidate memories. During the dream, the brain can organize the events of the day in a new manner. It can also connect old experiences to the new ones. The connection results into the visual nature of dreams where individual can perceive old and new images. Since the body’s system shuts down, the brain does the activities without additional input without the risk of individuals acting out the memories of the day. Individuals who act out their dreams have biotic failures in the connection between the spinal cord and their brain.
Discussion
There are eight different sections in the two chapters. However, the most captivating section has the title “To Sleep, No doubt to Dream.” The section focuses on the different stages that people undergo when they are sleeping. The stages occur after a period of sleep. They depend on how long the person sleeps hence short and intermittent periods of sleep may result in incomplete cycles of the sleep periods.
The first stage experienced during sleep is the Rapid Eye Movement (REM). The stage came into light through the discovery of a scientist named Aserinsky at the beginning of the 1950s. REM usually occurs after the first 90 minutes of one’s sleep. Aserinsky was examining sleep and a section of the research he did involved observation of infants while they were sleeping. He noted that during the subsequent stages after REM, individuals underwent the No Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) stages. He observed that there were active movements of the eyes at the time when the infants were sleeping.
As the night progressed, the movements became slow, occasional, and the eyes rolled most of the time (Aserinsky, 1953, p.3). Aserinsky concluded that the periods when the eyes portrayed active movements could associate to dreaming. The conclusion was just a theory advanced by the scientist. However, the scientist experiences a major challenge in an attempt to prove the theory. The main challenge was the inability of the infants to tell him what they had been dreaming. They could not confirm t6het they were dreaming at that particular time when the scientist observed the eye movement. As a result, Aserinsky extended his research ideas to include adults in order to prove his theoretical conclusions.
In conjunction with his co-author (Nathaniel Kleitman), they sampled 20 adult participants to take part in the research. They employed electronic measuring devices, which connected to the eyes of the participants. There were leads that extended to the adjacent room, which allowed the researchers to monitor the sleep of the participants. Whenever the sensors detected eye movements, the researchers asked the particular participants to wake up. The participants answered questions on whether they were dreaming at that time. In addition, they also responded to questions on whether the details of the dream. The results confirmed the theory advanced by Aserinsky that REM closely relates to dreaming when one is sleeping.
Out of all the 27 participants taking part in the research, 20 of them revealed that they had visual dreams just before the awakening. The remaining seven participants said that they had a feeling of a dream although they could not the visual details of the dreams. The visual details were sketchy and scanty. When there was no eye movement, nineteen of the participants went through the same procedure, and the participants reported that there had been no dreaming. During some nights of the Research, the participants did not undergo any awakening. The group had three or four periods of rapid eye movement during the night.
Based on this conclusion, research asserts that most individuals usually have three to four dreams every single night that they sleep. The dreams can also occur during the day. The occurrence of dreams depends on the sleeping patterns of the individual. People who sleep for long hours of the night have more dreams at night. On the other hand, those who sleep more during the day tend to dream more during the day.
Significance of Aserinsky’s Research
The Research conducted by Aserinsky does not see time it significant at the time the researcher took the initiative. Its importance stands out in modern day science and the nonprofessional understanding of what happens during dreams. For instance, people now understand the stages involved when they fall asleep. The stages range from the initial stage where the sleep is light to the last stage where they are in deep sleep. As a result of Aserinsky’s research on sleep, there has been huge development and interests in sleep, sleeping patterns, sleeping durations, and dreams (Wolcott &Strapp, 2002, p.5). Dreams are part of sleep.
Because of the research, many medical practitioners develop important theories and therapies for patients. The doctors can recommend the right amount of time that an individual should sleep in order to recover from certain medical conditions that require rest.
Dement’s Experiment
Dement used a more radical approach in understanding dreams and deprivation. His study involved eight male participants aged between 23 and 32 years. Dement attached electrodes to the muscles around their eyes. The electrodes extended to the adjacent room for collecting data. The participants slept normally without any interruption. The practice aimed at obtaining the sleep patterns of the participants. For the other few nights that followed, the researcher woke up the patients before they hit REM. He deprived the patients of their dream. The participants did not go back to sleep again unless it was time for the study. After these nights, the researcher took them back to the recovery phase where the participants slept without interruption. Dement still recorded their sleeping patterns.
After these nights, only six of the participants were called back to do the same process matching the number of awakenings to the number of deprivation nights where the participant would not be awake when starting dreaming, but just right after the dream had finished.
The results indicate that each requires an average amount of six hours and 5o minutes of sleep every night. The average amount of time taken while dreaming, by an individual, sums up to a total of 80 minutes. The results derived also pointed out that the dreaming time of the participants was similar for the first several nights. The time had a variation of 7 minutes. It was either less or more by seven minutes.
The main of the experiment was to show if the researcher had the ability to stop the Rapid Eye Movement of the participants. Dement had to wake up the between 7 to 22 times to enable him block their REM. As the nights went by, the number of times that the participants required interruption increased to 13 to 20 times.
References
Aserinsky, E. (1953). Ocular motility during sleep and its application to the study of rest-activity cycles and dreaming.
Campbell, T. (2008). Sleeping patterns. Seattle, Wash.: A. Belle.
Coon, D., & Mitterer, J. O. (2014). Psychology: A journey. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.
Winkelman, J. W., & Plante, D. T. (2010). Foundations of psychiatric sleep medicine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wolcott, S., & Strapp, C. M. (2002). Dream Recall Frequency and Dream Detail as Mediated by Personality, Behavior, and Attitude. Dreaming. doi:10.1023/A:1013842505744
