Dreams Understanding
The subconscious is usually the right side of the brain or the opposite
side of
the persons writing hand. Within the subconscious lie different types
of things
such as suppressed emotions, creativity, and basic human instinct
(Ullman and
Zimmerman 1979). The conscious part of the mind works when
people are awake and
is the part of the mind that handles things that people
can understand. No one
truly knows why a person can't interact with the
subconscious while awake,
however studies show that dreams are a way in which
people can better comprehend
its behavior. The condition of the body during
dreaming is interesting because
the brain shuts off all sensory receptors
thus, canceling all somatic impulses (Ullman
and Zimmerman 1979). This puts
the body in an almost paraplegic state. The brain
however continues to
control all autonomic functions such as blood flow, heart
pulsation, and lung
inflation. During the sleep, homeostasis will fluctuate
because sleep occurs
on four stages (Davidmann, 1998). The individual goes from
awake to stage 1,
then to 2, 3, and finally 4, the deepest stage of sleep. After
spending about
twenty minutes in stage 4, they return to stage 1 and progress
back to stage
4. The individual will continue to make these cycles throughout
their sleep.
Most individuals will experience about 4 to 5 cycles a night
(Davidmann,
1998). This is why humans are more apt to wake up at specific
times in the night
and not sporadically (most people do not notice this
however). During stage 1
the individual will experience what has been named
REM (Rapid Eye Movement), I
will make further elaboration on REM momentarily.
For now I would like to point
out that during REM the body will show more
signs of consciousness by
spontaneous muscle contractions, flagellate
excretion, and oculomoter
coordination (eye movement). The body will
experience these tensions and
reactions because this is the active time of
sleep in the average human (Davidmann,
1998). I spoke earlier of REM
(Rapid Eye Movement); it is the time in which the
individual will have their
dreams. Nathaniel Kleitman discovered it in 1953. It
always occurs in the
lightest stage of sleep, stage 1. It has been given its
name because of the
muscle contractions in the eye motor receptors. These
electrical impulses
originate from the brain stem and then travel to the eyes to
produce imagery.
The catalysts for these impulses are triggered by the
subconscious mind and
the emotions within it (Davidmann, 1998). The REM will
usually begin ninety
minutes after sleep is initiated and will last roughly ten
to fifteen minutes
(Davidmann, 1998). It is during the ten to fifteen minutes
that dreams occur.
The REM will end and the individual will slip into deeper
sleeps, until the
forth stage is reached. Once this occurs the mind begins to
come out of the
deeper sleep stages until it reaches the REM once again. The
interesting
factor is that each time the sleeper enters the REM phase of sleep
the REM
phase will increase in length. This repeats four to five times in the
average
sleep. The reason the dreams occur in the REM or the lightest stage
is
because this is the only stage in which the conscious mind can interpret
the
imagery of the subconscious. This is not to say that the subconscious
doesn't
remain active in deeper sleep stages but the conscious mind isn't
alert enough
to decipher the imagery the subconscious creates in deep sleep.
A good
personification description of this is to say that the conscious
simply can't
swim as deep as the subconscious. The REM is also interesting
because if a
person does not experience it they will suffer from various
sleeping disorders
because it is required by the body just like sunlight is
required. People who
experience exaggerated REM will suffer from fatigue and
sleep depravation while
they are awake. Usually, a fully-grown person has
about 4 to 5 cycles of REM
sleep, consisting of about 25% of a night's sleep.
A newborn child's sleep can
consist of as high as 50% REM type sleep
(Davidmann, 1998). As I previously
stated, a person would go through the
sleep stage cycle four to five times a
night, hence four to five dreams per
night. With this in mind it can be
calculated the average human being will
have 136,000 dreams in a lifetime,
spending about six total years in the REM
stage dreaming. Mentally retarded
individuals or people with low IQs tend to
spend less time in the REM type
sleep, but other mental disorders are capable
of initiating more REM type sleep.
The reason for this is unknown. Now
that the diagnostics of dreams has been
covered I would like to focus on the
origin of dreams from a medical standpoint.
As a consequence, memory,
sensory, muscle-control, and cognitive areas of the
brain are randomly
stimulated, resulting in the higher cortical brain attempting
to make some
sense of it. The reason for these stimulations is unknown but
various medical
researchers believe they are the after effects of certain
chemical reactions
in the brain. This, according to the research, gives rise to
the experience
of a dream, but there is controversy of the question of whether
dreams have
intentional meaning. Many psychotherapists agree that dreams are
stimulated
by impulses from the brain stem but they have actual meaning and are
not just
hallucinations.