SLEEP AND DREAMS By: Gabrielle DiAntonio May 2, 2014 Sleep and dreams By: Gabrielle DiAntonio What is that? She saw a glint of light out of the corner of her bedroom door. She looked a little closer “Aaahhhhhhhh! FIRE! I am being trapped” she yelled out! She turned around to find the window. It was gone. The fire started slowly coming through the cracks of the door. Jules hid under her bed shaking. Jules’ eye shot open. Her heart rate was beating fast and she was sweating. She saw her Mom over her. “What happened?” Jules cried out. “It’s okay, it was just a dream.” Jules felt her eyes go heavy. “Okay” she whispered. People don't know the real reason why we dream. On the other hand, they have a lot of knowledge on why we sleep. Dreams involve a lot of thinking, it involves how your mind works. You could have any kind of dream about anything. STAGES There are five stages of sleep that each play a different role. Can you guess what the five stages are? I will give you a hint. There is two stages of light sleep, two stages of deep sleep and one stage of REM sleep. You go through this cycle about six times a night. Fine I will tell you! The first stage is stage one. Then you go into stage two. Those two stages are considered light sleep. After, you go into stage three. Then stage four. Those two stages are deep sleep. Finally you go into the last stage of the cycle, the fifth stage of the cycle s REM sleep. First, stage one. In stage one you are just falling asleep ­ you're dozing off. Your eyes feel a little heavy. You can be woken up very easily. Sudden sounds, nudging, baring, television, music, talking and a lot of other things can wake you up. This is the first stage of light sleep. If you don’t wake up in stage one you will go into stage two. Stage two is a little deeper but its still light sleep. You can be woken up easily but by less things than stage one. This is the second stage of the sleep cycle. Next, you go into stage three. Stage three is deep sleep. It is pretty hard to be woken up in this stage. Your body is relaxed, still, floppy and your breathing is very slow. You will most likely sleep through this stage. That is stage three the first stage of deep sleep. As you get into stage four your body is very relaxed. It’s almost the same as stage three but its deeper. It is very hard to wake someone up when they are in stage four. That is stage four the deepest stage of sleep. After you finish stage four you go into REM sleep. REM sleep is the stage where you dream. Although you can dream in any stage most of your dreams happen in REM sleep. This is the last stage in the 90 minute sleep cycle. The big thing I learned was each stage serves a different purpose in the sleep cycle. If you ever wondered or ever are wondering how you sleep at night you now know the answer ! THEORIES Can you think of why we dream and sleep? Well even though many people have spent their lives researching dreams and sleep no one really knows the real reason why we dream and sleep. There are many many ideas of why. I will tell you some people’s ideas below. First, there is the Adaptive/Evolutionary theory “[that suggests that laziness at night is an adaption that served survival functions by keeping organisms out of harms way.” Then there is “‘Energy Conservation’ theory which suggest that the main reason for sleep is to lower a person’s energy demand and expenditure during part of the night or day, especially when it is least efficient to search for food. The energy metabolism is reduced to ten percent during sleep in people.” Other theories are the “‘Restorative’ theories which suggests that we restore what was lost when we are awake. Tissue repair, muscle growth, protein synthesis, and growth hormone release usually only happen during sleep.” Another Restorative theory suggests “while we are awake there is a build up of adenosine, that is thought of why we are tired. Caffeine blocks adenosine so when we drink it we are not tired and wide awake. At night it clears the adenosine from our systems so we are alert when we wake up.” The article “Why do we sleep anyway?”, from healthysleep.med.harvard.edu, says “one of the most recent explanations of why we sleep is because of the changes in the structure and organization of the brain. Brain Plasticity is not really understood but its connection with sleep has many important implications. Brain plasticity is the brain’s ability to change functionally, physically, and chemically throughout life. It is becoming clear that sleep plays an important role in brain development in young children. A link between sleep and brain plasticity is becoming clear in adults as well.” Another theory for sleep is “‘House Cleaning,’ which suggests that your brain is taking out some unimportant information and replacing it with more important information.” This theory for dreams suggests that dreams have no reasons. They are chance events. Another theory for dreams suggest “sleep cells throw bits of memory together to make a dream.” Finally, for dreams they help make solutions and solve problems in your life.” The big thing I learned out of the many theories of sleep is many of them have to do with brain development. Also, out of the dream theories there are some different ideas like random memories and problem­solving. Overall I think many different people have many different ideas of why we sleep and dream. Which one do you think is the real reason? SLEEP Sleep is very important for your growth and brain development. When you sleep things repair in your body. You grow a little bit taller every night you sleep! I am guessing you want to learn a little more about sleep because you sleep about a third of the 24 hour day! Do you know what a electroencephalogram? I am guessing you don't! Well a electroencephalogram also known as a EEG machine is a machine that traces your brainwave pattern. It picks up tiny electrical signals that your brain is constantly making. It’s how psychologists and researchers know when your in REM, other stages, and when you're awake. Each stage has a different brainwave pattern. Look at the chart below to see. The pattern for REM sleep and being awake is almost the same pattern because your brain is working as hard to make up the dreams as it is when your awake. Maybe you should try out the EEG machine, it might be interesting! There was once a study done in 1965 on Randy Gardner. He was seventeen years old. He stayed awake for 264 hours and 12 minutes (About 11 days.) They kept him up by having him take cold showers, playing ping pong, playing some other sports and some other stuff. After one night he had a hard focusing his eyes. After two nights he grew grumpy and bad tempered. On the fourth night his memory failed him and he started seeing things that were not there. (He saw a sign on the street as a person, he was seeing a famous football player, and the street lights were very very blurry.) Near the end of the difficult days he stopped talking. But after a few days of a lot of sleep he was his old self again. That was the best known study of sleep deprivation and sleep deprivation effects. You need the proper amount of sleep to function. Newborns need 12­18 hours of sleep on average. Infants need 14­15 hours of sleep on average. Toddlers need 12­14 hours of sleep on average. Preschoolers need 11­13 hours of sleep on average. School aged children need 10­11 hours of sleep on average. Teenagers need 8.5­9.25 hours of sleep on average. And adults need 7­9 hours of sleep on average. Make sure you get the right amount of sleep. In the book “101 Questions About Sleep and Dreams” it says there are long sleepers and short sleepers. Long sleepers sleep longer than normal for there age but they spend the extra time sleeping in REM sleep. Short sleepers handle sleep deprivation better and they spend most of their time sleeping in stages three and four. Also short sleepers are more likely to take risks. There are two sections of the brain. The right section is creativity, feeling, visualization, imagination, expression, problem­solving, bright ideas, music, artistry, wholeness, and dreams. The left half is for reasoning, logic, math, verbalization, talking, writing, reading, sequencing, numbering, analysis, and categorizing. So your dreams come from right section of the brain. The big thing I learned was that sleep is very important for you. Without sleep you would not be able to do the things you normally do in life. What are you a short sleeper, long sleeper, or normal sleeper? Whatever you are make sure you get the proper amount of sleep at night. DREAMS What do you dream about? Being chased, monsters, eating icecream, or even sleeping? Well people have certain dreams based on how they think and what they were thinking about before they went to sleep. I will tell you some more below. Sigmund Freud researched many things. He was an amazing and extremely smart man. One of the things he studied was dreams. Some of the thoughts he had about dreams were wrong but here is some out of the many things he has said about them. “Dreams may be attempts of the unconscious to understand and overcome threatening or harmful experiences.” The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind. Dreams are often profound when they seem the most crazy. And “a dream is a wish your heart makes.” Some of these have been proven to be wrong but no one knew a lot about dreams then and he took a very good shot at it. “101 Questions About Sleep and Dreams” had a chart of the percentages of men and women who reported having certain dreams. I will list them below. MEN WOMAN 1. Being chased or pursued not injured
78% 83% 2. Falling
73% 74% 3. School, teaching, and studying 57% 71% 4. Arriving too late e.g. for a train 55% 62% 5. On the verge of falling 53% 60% 6. Trying to do something repeatedly 55% 53% 7. A person now living as dead 43% 59% 8. Flying or soaring through the air 58% 40% 9. Sensing a presence vividly 44% 50% 10. Failing an examination 37% 48% 11. Being attacked 40% 44% 12. Being frozen with fright 32% 44% 13. Being a child again 33% 38% As you can tell from above, most of these things are real life things and or nightmares. Have you ever tried to remember your dreams? It’s hard. Right? Well tell yourself before you go to bed I am going to wake up after every dream. Keep doing that for a couple of weeks. You will go to sleep thinking about it and eventually you will wake up after every dream. If you end up waking up after every dream you can write it down on a piece of paper and look at it in the morning. It’s a lot easier to remember a dream and wake up after it if it is ‘Lucid.’ Lucid dreams are dreams when you know that you're dreaming. Only about 20% of us have Lucid dreams about once a month. Do you think seeing is the only “sense” in a dream? It’s not. You can actually have all 5 senses in dreams. About 50 percent of dreams have sound in it. Only about 1 percent have taste it it. Still only about 1 percent have smell in it. And finally only about 1 percent have touch in it. Almost all dreams have “visuals” in them unless you are blind but I will get to that below. People have wondered if blind people dream. The answer to that is it depends. People who are born blind don't have any “visual dreams.” But they might have “virtual dreams.” People who become blind between the ages 5­7 possibly could have “visual dreams.” People who lost their sight after 7 years old still probably see their dreams. This struck me because even though we are not completely sure why we dream we still have a lot of knowledge on dreams and who has certain dreams. Try to remember what your dreams were about when you wake up. They could be very interesting! NIGHTMARES/NIGHT TERRORS Have you ever had a frightening nightmare? Were you sweating and scared? People have nightmares based on their age. You can have two different types of “night frights.” You may not know which on your having. The first type of “night fright” is nightmares. These are dreams that are very vivid and frightening. You probably will remember it in the morning. The scariest ones happen in REM sleep. The cause for nightmares in adults can happen because of a late night snack, medicine, drugs, tranquilizers, and sleep deprivation. Causes for nightmares in children could happen because of scary movies, and irregular sleep routine. Nightmares happen more often in girls than boys. The second type is night terrors. Night terrors are more frightening than nightmares. If you wake up in the morning you probably won't remember it. They usually happen about 90 minutes into your sleep. They cause extreme terror and panic. Night terrors happen about between ages three to twelve. But ages three and one half are when they mostly happen. Around 1 percent to 6 percent of children have nightmares. They only last one to two minutes. Girls and boys are equally affected by night terrors. Maybe you are wondering what the effects of nightmares and night terrors are. The effects of nightmares are increased heartbeat and sweating. The effect of night terrors are intense crying, Tachycardia (increased heart rate), Tachypnea (increased breathing rate, sweating, and you are really frightened. Did you know that people usually have certain nightmares based on their age? Toddlers have nightmares about separation from their parents. Preschoolers have nightmares about monsters and the dark. School age children have nightmares about death and real danger. Finally adults have nightmares about falling, being attacked, and dying. This really struck me because nightmares and night terrors can really affect you even though they don't last very long. They last only 1­2 minutes usually. I hope you can learn how to handle your nightmares or/and night terrors because they can harm you for long periods of time. MEANING Did you ever know that dreams can mean something? People can interpret dreams to mean something big and real. Have you ever dreamt of something that can solve a problem that you are having? Like if you are having a fight you can think of a resolution. I will tell you some famous inventions that have happened from dreams. Do you know how many people have invented things from dreams? Many. Here is some. Madame CJ Walker came up with a very useful and important hair care product from a dream. Elias Howe completed the sewing machine in a dream. Albert Einstein came up with E=MC in a dream. Stephenie Meyer came up with vampires sparkling in the sun in a dream. Mary Shelley came up with the basic storyline for Frankenstein in a dream. Abraham Lincoln dreamt of his assassination a couple days before his assassination after he dreamt about he told his wife. Jack Nicklaus found out a new golf swing in a dream. Stephen King came up with some of “Misery” and “It” in a dream (two of the most famous books he has written). And William Shakespeare came up with some parts of some of his plays and books in a dream. These are just few out of the many many things people have created in dreams. These inventions would have probably not been invented if it weren't for dreams. This struck me because many famous people came up with big inventions that made them pretty rich and famous from dreams. Without dreams the world would be different. Dreams are amazing things. I hope you now know that dreams can mean something so pay more attention to them. Take some time to remember and figure out what they mean. You might make a big invention some day from dreams. You sleep about one third of your life. Part of that time you are dreaming. Psychologist and researchers have proven that if you are thinking about something before you go to bed you will most likely dream about it at night. Therefore you could probably dream about anything you want. So dreaming involves a lot of thinking. Even though sleeping is partial unconsciousness you still have to use your brain. Without sleep you would eventually go insane. Don't stay up to late just to show you can. If you go to sleep earlier you will be in a good mood and you will be happy. If you go to bed to late you will be unhappy and short tempered. Sleeping and dreams is a very big part of your life so pay more attention to them! Works Cited A. 101 questions about sleep and dreams. Faith Hickman Bryne. 2006. Minneapolis, Minnesota. B. Sleep. J. Allan Hobson. 1989. New York. C. Dreaming and dreams. Patricia A. Stafford. 1992. New York. D. Sleep, dream, and memory consolidation. The role of stress. nbci.nlm.nih.gov E. Why do we sleep anyway? Healthy sleep. healthysleep.med.harvard.edu F. Dreams and Sleep. Trudi Strain Trueit. 2004. Canada G. What happens when I sleep? Ruth Owen. 2014. United States of America. H. The Mystery of Sleep. Alvin Silverstein and Virginia Silverstein. 1987. uNITED states of America. I. dreamtraining.blogs.com J. Kidbiz 3000. Sleep does the body good. K. www.webmd.com L. www.vetransday.com M. addandsomuchmore.com N. www.sleeptrackers.com O. www.social­studies.co.uk P. www.end­your­sleep­deprivation.com Q. www.meditation­m3.org R. www.dreamanity.com S. thebrain.mcgill.ca