Sleeping and the Biology of Dreams
Dreams, we all have
them. They can be good, bad or just plain weird. The question is, what exactly
are they? The word dream can be defined as series of thoughts, images and
sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep. Only around 95% of our
dreams are remembered by the time we get out of bed which is crazy seeing as
the average person dreams four to six times every night. Now, these dreams can
last a few seconds but usually they range from five to twenty minutes. People are more likely to remember their dream if they
are awakened during the REM phase. REM stands for rapid eye movement and is a
phase of sleep distinguished by random movement of the eyes, low muscle tone
throughout the body, and the tendency of the sleeper to dream vividly. It is said
that dreaming can indeed help you learn, as well as develop your long term
memories. 
There are four stages
of sleep. The first stage is where you drift in and out of sleep and can be
awakened easily. Muscle activity and eye movement both get slower. It is in
this phase where individuals can often feel the sensation of falling as they
experience sudden and random muscle contractions. In stage two eye movement
stops and brain waves become slower with the infrequent burst of fast brain
waves. As a person enters stage three, extremely slow brain waves, known as
delta waves, are distributed with faster and smaller waves. Finally, in stage
four, the brain pretty much only secretes delta waves. The last two stages are
referred to as deep (delta) sleep. However, in 2008 the use of stage four was
removed by the sleep profession in the US and is now considered stage three.
These four stages can be seen on the graph above.
We dream for several reasons such as to represent unconscious wants, to explain random signals from the brain
and body, to strengthen and process information gathered during the day or
perhaps to work as a form of psychotherapy. Not only this but there has also been several surveys conducted which
show that men and women often dream about different things. For example most
women’s dreams feature family members, babies and children. Men’s dreams are
also found to be more aggressive.
To conclude, despite lots of research and
experiments, our knowledge of dreams remains very limited.
McA
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