Dreams

Dreams

• Sequence of
  • Images, sensation, emotions

• Purpose = unknown

• Duration of second to 20 min.
  • Get longer as night progresses

• More REM as night progresses

• 5-minute dream is about 5-minutes of story
  • Don’t compress a day into 5 min.

• Remember if awakened in REM

• 3-5 dreams per night

• About 2 hrs per night
• Common
  • Feel out of your control
  • Except lucid self-aware dreams
  • Can provide creative thoughts, problem solutions or inspiration

• REM has no release of:
  • Monoamines
  • Norepinephrine, serotonin & histamine
• Theories
  • Ancient
    • Fates and gods talking to you
  • Unconscious Mind
    • Sigmund Freud
    • Unconscious wishes
  • Threat-simulation theory
    • Antti Revonsuo
    • Prepare you for real life
    • Evolutionary theory
  • Activation Theory
    • Hobson & McCarley
    • Random neuron firings
• Random bits
  • Blind People
    • Congenital blind                                    auditory only
    • Some sight                    some visual dreams
    • If see color                                dream in color
  • Congenital blind
    • 25% more nightmares
• All mammals experience REM
  • dolphins lowest amount of REM
  • humans are in the middle
  • opossum and the armadillo most