Relationship counseling - Sleep and Dreams

Sleep and Dreams

Leave your comments about this article below

Once I heard a saying which caught my mind, for I find it very true. "Sleep the irresistible tempter to whom we must all succumb". The mystery of sleep has been studied by people since the beginning of knowledge, but even now, in the 21-st century, we seem to know so little about it.

Everyone knows that we sleep because our body and mind need rest. A few hours of good sleep are enough to recover for another day of active work. But everyone has their individual body rythms, which develop through time and grow into a habit (so we tend to feel sleepy at certain times during the day/night cycle), but everybody's habits are unique. The way we sllept previous night, may affect the whole day of work, and our relationships with others, and even the amount and the quality of food we select to eat this day.

Let us take a look at the main characteristics of sleep which are very good to know about, if you want to keep having healthy and productive lifestyle.

Rhythms of sleep
Our daily schedule of waking and sleeping is timed by a body clock known as a Circadian Rhythm. Each night sleep is also has a rhythm of its own running through five stages, recognisable by EEG (electroencephalogram, measuring electrical activity in the brain) recording.
If our Circadian Rhythm is out of synchronisation (eg due to flights across time-zones or due to unusual sleeping patterns) we may find that when we physically want to sleep may not be when we psychologically want to sleep.

The Stages of Sleep
Stage 1:
During this light sleep, which lasts about two minutes you, may experience fantastic images like hallucinations. You may experience a sense of falling at which moment you may suddenly jerk (Myoclonus) or feel as though you are floating or weightless. It is during the first few stages of sleep that many people encounter some difficulty at some stage during their lives. We lie awake thinking about going to sleep and become frustrated that we seem to be incapable of doing so. This is the experience that we often label as "insomnia". Thankfully there are a number of solutions that do not require chemical sedation.
Stage 2:
As you relax more deeply you begin a period of around twenty minutes of stage 2 sleep characterised by the periodic occurrence of spindle bursts - bursts of rapid brain activity. Sleep talking may occur at this stage of sleep and you can still be awoken without much difficulty.
Stages 3-4:
The next few minutes you proceed through stage 3 and into stage 4 (deep sleep). Together, these stages are categorised as Slow Wave sleep, when your brain emits delta waves. This phase lasts for about thirty minutes, during which you are hard to awaken. During this deep sleep we may begin walking, or as children wet the bed. Even when we are deeply asleep our brains somehow process meaningful stimuli allowing us to move around in our beds without falling out. An unusual sound or the crying of a baby may cause us to quickly awaken. EEG recordings confirm that our auditory cortex responds to sound stimuli even in deep sleep.

About an hour after you fall asleep a strange thing happens; rather than continuing in deep sleep, you begin to ascend through stages 3 - 2 (where you spend about half your night) and enter a phase of sleep called REM.

REM-Phase:
During your first cycle of REM sleep your brain waves become rapid, more like those of nearly awake stage 1 sleep. Unlike stage 1 sleep, during REM your heart rate rises, your breathing becomes more rapid and irregular and every half minute or so your eyes dart around in a momentary burst behind closed eye lids. During REM, your genitals become aroused (erection / vaginal lubrication). The morning erection stems from the last wave of REM Except during very scary dreams genital arousal always occurs, regardless whether the dreams content is sexual.

During REM the motor cortex is active, however your brain stem blocks its messages, leaving your body so relaxed except for the occasional twitch, so that you are essentially paralysed. During this stage it is difficult to awaken and therefore is sometimes referred to as paradoxical sleep. Unlike the fleeting images of stage 1, REM images are usually emotional and story like. Most researchers of dreams do not accept the theory that rapid eye movements indicate the individual is visually scanning the dream, but that eye movements are a result of the dreamers active nervous system.

As the night wears on this sleep cycle repeats itself around every 90 minutes. During the night the deep stage 4 sleep gets progressively shorter and then disappears whilst the REM periods get longer. By morning 20 -25% of our sleep has been spent in REM some 100 minutes per night.

Sometimes when the emotional content of a dream exceeds our ability to process that information we may wake suddenly in the middle of a dream. Sometimes such dreams can reoccur night after night such that our sleep pattern is disrupted and we begin to expect to wake-up during specific dreams at specific times. This can be disrupt our sleep patterns dramatically. There are a number of highly effective theraputic techniques to enable the processing such dreams to be completed such as EMDR.

Why do we dream
In his landmark book 'The Interpretation of Dreams' published in 1900, Freud argued that by fulfilling wishes a dream is a psychic safety valve that harmlessly discharges otherwise unacceptable material. A symbolic representation of unconscious drives that would be threatening if expressed directly. Freud's theories have, however, been surpassed by new theories. One of which is Information Processing, which hypothesises that dreams may help sort, sift and fix in memory our daily experience.

Following stressful periods or intense learning, REM sleep increases. There appears to be compelling evidence that REM sleep facilitates memory. During experimental trials Subjects awoken at the beginning of REM cycles had far greater difficulty recalling certain information verbalised to them prior to sleep, than did those who were not awoken.

Another explanation of dreams is that they serve a physiological function. It is thought that dreams, or the associated brain activity of REM sleep, provide periodic stimulation that develops and preserves the brains neural pathways. Still another physiological theory is that dreams erupt from spontaneous neural activity that spreads upwards from the brainstem, implying that dreams are the brains attempt to make sense of these impulses (our overactive brain weaves a story from whatever impulses are available). It appears that our visual cortex and our emotion related limbic system both become active during REM sleep and hence may affect our dreams.

The underlying function of dreams still creates great debate, but most theorists recognise that we need REM sleep. Individuals who have been deprived of REM sleep, when allowed to sleep naturally rapidly return to REM and spend longer periods in this stage. This phenomenon is known as REM rebound.

Sleep loss and appetite
Consistently getting a good night's sleep may be one of the answers to maintaining a healthy weight, if early research findings are correct.

The small study conducted Dr Van Cauter in 2004 found that when healthy young men slept for only four hours on two nights in a row, they showed dips in a hormone that suppresses appetite, coupled with increases in an appetite-stimulating hormone. On top of that, the volunteers reported being more hungry after their sleep-deprived nights than after nights when they slept for 10 hours.

The two appetite-regulating hormones in question are leptin, which is released from fat cells and helps alert the brain that it's time to stop eating, and ghrelin, which is produced in the stomach and helps trigger hunger. Van Cauter's team found that when the 12 men in their study slept for four hours on two consecutive nights, their levels of leptin were 18 percent lower and their levels of ghrelin were 28 percent higher than they were after two nights of spending 10 hours in bed.

When the men were asked to assess their appetites after sleep restriction, they showed a 24 percent increase in their "hunger ratings." And the foods they craved most were sweets, salty foods like chips and nuts, and starchy fare like bread and pasta.

Dr Van Cauter conducted numerous other experiments and came to conclusion that consistently getting a good night's sleep may be one of the answers to maintaining a healthy weight.

Van Cauter's team found that when the 12 men in their study slept for four hours on two consecutive nights, their levels of leptin were 18 percent lower and their levels of ghrelin were 28 percent higher than they were after two nights of spending 10 hours in bed. When the men were asked to assess their appetites after sleep restriction, they showed a 24 percent increase in their "hunger ratings."

The exact reasons for the hormonal changes associated with sleep deprivation are not yet known. According to Van Cauter, the mechanism may have to do with a small area in the brain where neurons respond to both eating and sleeping.

"We hypothesize that these neurons would be activated by sleep deprivation and stimulate ghrelin and decrease leptin," she explained. Van Cauter and her colleagues point out that the rise in obesity in the U.S. has occurred in concert with a decline in time spent sleeping. Currently, less than one-quarter of young American adults sleep eight to nine hours per night - down from about 41 percent in 1960.

Whether these trends are related is unclear. There are ongoing studies, Van Cauter said, that are comparing weight changes over time among "short" and "long" sleepers.

In addition, studies in her team's lab are testing the hypothesis that sleep deprivation may thwart people's efforts to lose weight through dieting.

An editorial published with the report calls the findings "provocative," but adds that key questions remain. One of these is how well the results of a research experiment translate into the real world, according to Drs. Jeffrey S. Flier and Joel K. Elmquist of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

Still, they write, if further studies confirm the findings, the "simple goals" of getting both more exercise and a better night's sleep "may well become a part of our future approach to combating obesity."

Materials for this article were taken from various websites on Internet and were used as discusion starters for DU chatroom on May 19, 2007.

Strict Standards: CaptchaLib_hncaptcha::getCaptcha() [captchalib-hncaptcha.getcaptcha]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Captcha/lib/classes/captchalibs/class.captchalib_hncaptcha.php on line 50 Notice: Undefined index: path in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Captcha/lib/classes/captchalibs/class.captchalib_hncaptcha.php on line 50 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 255 Notice: Undefined variable: emailfield in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 255 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 256 Notice: Undefined variable: websitefield in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 256 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 259 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 259 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 261 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 261 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 262 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 262 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 263 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 263 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 264 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 264 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 265 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 265 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 266 Notice: Undefined variable: title in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 266 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 266 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 266 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 267 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 267 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 268 Notice: Undefined variable: author in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 268 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 268 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 268 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 269 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 269 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 270 Notice: Undefined variable: email in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 270 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 270 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 270 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 271 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 271 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 272 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 272 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 273 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 273 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 274 Notice: Undefined variable: website in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 274 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 274 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 274 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 275 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 275 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 276 Notice: Undefined variable: content in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 276 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 276 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 276 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 277 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 277 Strict Standards: main() [function.main]: It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. Please use the date.timezone setting, the TZ environment variable or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Denver' for 'MDT/-6.0/DST' instead in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 278 Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home1/travelw3/public_html/counseling/modules/Comments/action.default.php on line 278



Add A Comment

	
Add A Comment























	
		Code in the picture:
		

	
	
		Your Name(*):
		

	
	
		Comment(*):