Dreaming Research Papers

Introduction: Dreaming occurs during everyone’s night sleep and incorporates interpretation of recent experiences, flushes out the excess knowledge, and does everything in between. To completely comprehend dreaming, there needs to be a deep understanding of the history, stages of sleep, and psychology behind dreaming, as well as how it benefits you. Many tests have been done to find the reason for dreaming and the physiological purpose behind it, but it seems there is still a long way to go.

History:

“Dreaming is a universal experience, one that individuals may attempt to induce or avoid, remember or forget” (Tedlock, 1987). Since the beginning of time, dreaming has been an experience shared by everyone. Multiple theorists and philosophers

The first stage of sleep occurs when you first doze off, which involves an increase of activity on the visual cortex. The second stage of sleep is when the eyes stop moving at all, and the brain waves become slower. By the third stage of sleep, the brain waves have decreased immensely, and there are few quick waves known as spindles. In stage four, there are almost exclusively delta waves, slow waves, and you are considered to be in your deepest sleep (Crean, 2014). The first four stages of sleep usually occur in the first half of the night, while the second half is mostly rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep. “REM sleep is associated with intense neural activity, ocular saccades, muscular [relaxation] and dreaming” (Maquet, P. et al, 1996). So much goes into the science behind REM sleep that there may still be more to discover. A study was done to investigate the memory of REM sleep. Prior investigations showed a positive correlation between regional cerebral blood flow and REM sleep. There is also a positive correlation between REM sleep and the amygdala and cortical areas. All of this combined gives one the ability to remember dreams to a certain degree (Maquet, P. et al, 1996). In another study, it was found that about eighty percent of individuals woken up during REM sleep could report detailed dreams that incorporated one or more of the five aspects of dreaming given earlier (Hobson, 1988). There is a report of ninety-five percent of individuals remember dreams vividly when woken up during a cluster of eye movement, which is recorded by an electroencephalography (EEG) (Hobson, 1988). A full cycle of sleep, from stage one to REM sleep, takes an average of ninety minutes to complete. Even of you get more than the recommended amount of sleep per night, you could feel tired if your alarm wakes up in the middle of a sleep cycle. So ensure you make it through a full sleep cycle,