User:Hammadraza-BCi

This article is written by Hammad Raza

Dreams: Despite their power to bewilder, frighten us or amuse us, dreams remain an area of human behavior little understood and typically ignored in the models of cognition. As methods of introspection were replaced with more self-consciously objective methods in the social sciences in 1930s and 1940s, dream studies dropped out of the scientific literature. Dreams were neither directly observable by an experimenter nor were subjects’ nor were subjects dream reports reliable, being prey to the familiar problems of distortion due to delayed recall, if they were recalled at all. More often dreams are, of course, forgotten entirely, perhaps due to their prohibited character (Freud, 1955 [1900]). Altogether these problems seemed to put them beyond the realm of science.

The discovery that dreams take place primarily during a distinctive electrophysiological state of sleep, Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, which can be identified by objective criteria, led to rebirth of interest in this phenomenon. When REM sleep episode were timed for their duration and subjects woken to make reports before major editing or forgetting could take place, it was determined that subjects accurately matched the length of time they judged the sleep the dream narrative to be ongoing to the length of REM sleep that preceded the awakening. This close correlation of REM sleep and dream experience was the basis of first series of reports describing the nature of dreaming: that it is regular nightly, rather than occasional, phenomenon, and a high-frequency activity within each sleep period occurring at predictable intervals of approximately every 60-90minutes in all humans throughout the life span. REM sleep episodes and the dreams that accompany them lengthen progressively across the night, with the first episode being shortest, of approximately 10-12 minutes duration, and the second and third episodes increasing to 15-20 minutes. Dreams at the end of the night may last as long as 15 minutes, although these may be experienced as several distinct stories due to momentary arousals interrupting sleep as the night ends. Dream reports can be report from normal subjects on 50% of the occasion when an awakening is made prior to the end of the first REM period. This rate of retrieval is increased to about 99% when awakenings are made from the last REM period of the night. This increase in ability to recall appears to be related to intensification across the night in the vividness of dream imagery, colors and emotions. The dream story itself in the last REM period is farthest from reality, containing more bizarre elements, and it is these properties, coupled with the increased likelihood of spontaneous arousals allowing waking review to take place, that heighten the chance of recall of the last dream. The distinctive properties of this dream being crazy also contribute to the reputation of dreams being ‘crazy’. Reports from earlier dreams of the night, being more realistic, are often mistaken for waking thoughts. Learning & memory have been prominent, as in the Hughlings Jackson (1932) view that sleep Serves to sweep away unnecessary memories and connections from the day. This was recently revised by Crick and Mitchison (1983) and stated that dream sleep is a period of reversed learning. However, the opposite view that dreaming has an information handling; memory-consolidating function (Hennevin and Leconte, 1971) is also common.

The study of dreams is ready to move beyond the descriptive. Many facts have been amassed about this distinctive mental activity without any clear understanding of its basic nature. How is a dream put together into dramatic format without the contribution of any voluntary intent of the dreamer? How are the new perceptions formed that often express in such a highly economical terms a coming together of old memories and current waking experiences? Do dreams have effects despite the fact that they are forgotten? What do these processes tell us about how the mind works? Dreams are a difficult challenge. They deserve our best response.