Word: rem
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McMahon says her favorite type of patient to monitor is the victim of "sleep terror," the "most interesting and scariest" disorder she's seen since she began to train as a technician at Mass General 13 years ago. Such a patient will awaken from non REM (rapid eye movement) of non dream sleep, in terror for no apparent reason...
Narcoleptics go into REM sleep the stage of sleep during which dreams occur much sooner than normal patients, and more often during the night. There is also another form of the disorder known as cataplexy, in which the victim loses muscle tone and control of the body when experiencing strong emotions, such as excitement or anger. Stakes tells of one patient who, when he tried to punish his children by whipping them was unable to do so because when he tried to remove his belt he became "very limp and weak...
This theory, presented three years ago in the American Journal of Psychiatry, maintains that periodically during sleep REM activates a dream center in the brainstem. For example, if the eyes look to the left, the dream center may receive a message for the body to turn left. The dream center then relays this command to the body. Although the body does not actually move left, it sends a message to the frontal brain indicating that it moved. But the movement is not always so simple as turning left. Because the eyes are not actually seeing, the messages they transmit...
Hobson rejects the Freudian notion that dreams are essential because they offer an outlet for suppressed emotions. Dreaming is simply the result of REM, Hobson says. "Babies for example, have much more REM than adults--this is not because infants have an abundance of suppressed emotions and hidden remorse; it is because they are learning very much very fast. Similarly, when REM falls off with old age, this does not mean old age, this does not mean old people have any less anxiety than any one else," he adds...
Hobson has conducted extensive research on cats, which he says confirms the existence of the independent dream center in the mammalian brainstem. "REM occurs in cats when the entire brain except the brainstem has been destroyed," he says. The cat research has shown that REM causes the brain to create the dream and not vice-versa, Hobson says. "Obviously, we cannot tell if a cat is actually dreaming, but by inserting a microscopic electrode into a cat's brain, we can measure the electrical signal as it passes along a single nerve cell--the impulse in the eye fires before...