Word: sleeps
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...resuscitated after cardiac arrest have an NDE. Researchers tend to fall into one of two camps. The first argues that an NDE is a purely physiological phenomenon that occurs within an oxygen-starved brain. "There's nothing mysterious about NDEs," says Mark Mahowald, director of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center. "Many people want it to be a religious, paranormal or supernatural phenomenon. The fact that NDEs can be explained scientifically detracts from the mystique...
...reported recently on a tantalizing investigation into whether the observations people claim to make during an NDE (details of their resuscitation, the color of a nurse's shoes) are in fact accurate. Meanwhile, University of Kentucky neurophysiologist Kevin Nelson theorizes that NDEs are what can happen when a particular sleep state intrudes on the imperiled brain. "I wouldn't say it's definitive," says Nelson. "But it's an intriguing hypothesis that answers a great deal...
...explain why NDEs seem so coherent. In two articles published in Neurology, the second in March, a team of University of Kentucky researchers led by Nelson proposed that NDEs occur in a dream-like state brought on when crisis in the brain trips a predisposition to a type of sleep disorder. It's an hypothesis that's quickly gathered heavyweight support: "I think Dr. Nelson's REM-intrusion theory to explain NDEs is the actual physiologic explanation," says Minnesota sleep expert Mahowald...
...what theory? REM (rapid eye movement) sleep is the relatively active brain state in which most dreaming is thought to occur. REM intrusion is a disorder in which the sleeping person's mind wakes up before his body does. He feels awake, yet the muscle paralysis of REM can remain; he may also hallucinate until mind and body get back in sync. "Lay people think you're either awake or asleep," says Nelson, "but you needn't go directly from one to the other...
...Sleep in a Tub of Lard and Look 20 Years Younger...