quote | on dream:

“Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.”

– Dr William C Dement, The World: Medicine: Psychiatry & Psychology

 

surprisingly poetic for it’s scientific origin. i simply love the phrase ‘safely insane’.

quote | on sleep:

To die, to sleep—

No more, and by a sleep to say we end 

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep.

To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil

Must give us pause.

~ William Shakespeare; Hamlet, act 3, scene 1, l. 62-70

The Cell

One of my favourite thrillers of all time.

The Cell DVD cover

The Cell original poster

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Cell is a 2000 psychological thriller film written by Mark Protosevich, directed by Tarsem Singh and starring Jennifer Lopez. Catharine Deane is a psychotherapist, part of a revolutionary new treatment which allows the therapist to literally enter the mind of her patients. Her experience in this method takes an unexpected turn when an FBI agent seeks help to find the last abducted woman by a notorious serial killer, Carl Stargher before he fell into an irreversible coma.

The film provides a fascinating take on the unknown territories within the twisted mind of the killer – a visualisation of dreams, memories and desires that goes on in the brain. I was swept off my feet. The idea that past experiences could have a big impact on future psychological development and tendencies of an individual has always fascinated me. The mind as a cell.. and the surrreal stage  of Dream set by Tarsem as the integration of both memory and desire, past and future, is simply breath-taking.

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

El sueno de la razon produce monstruos by Goya.

Probably a 18th century attempt to explain the reason for nightmares or dreams, or so i thought. Sleep is portrayed as the loss of reason or logic, frightening and unknown. 

Why do we dream?

Some researchers suggest that dreams serve no real purpose, while others believe that dreaming is essential to mental, emotional and physical well-being. 

There are many hypotheses about the function of dreams, including:

• During the night there may be many external stimuli bombarding the senses, but the mind interprets the stimulus and makes it a part of a dream in order to ensure continued sleep. The mind will, however, awaken an individual if they are in danger or if trained to respond to certain sounds, such as a baby crying.
• Dreams allow the repressed parts of the mind to be satisfied through while keeping the conscious mind from thoughts that would suddenly cause one to awaken from shock.
• Freud suggested that bad dreams let the brain learn to gain control over emotions resulting from distressing experiences.
• Jung suggested that dreams may compensate for one-sided attitudes held in waking consciousness.
• Dreams are like the cleaning-up operations of computers when they are off-line, removing parasitic nodes and other “junk” from the mind during sleep.
• Dreams create new ideas through the generation of random thought mutations. Some of these may be rejected by the mind as useless, while others may be seen as valuable and retained. Blechner calls this the theory of “Oneiric Darwinism.”
• Dreams regulate mood.
• Hartmann says dreams may function like psychotherapy, by “making connections in a safe place” and allowing the dreamer to integrate thoughts that may be dissociated during waking life.
• More recent research by Griffin has led to the formulation of the ‘expectation fulfillment theory of dreaming’, which suggests that dreaming metaphorically completes patterns of emotional expectation and lowers stress levels.
• Ernest Hoffman, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Newton Wellesley Hospital in Boston, Mass., suggests that “…a possible (though certainly not proven) function of a dream to be weaving new material into the memory system in a way that both reduces emotional arousal and is adaptive in helping us cope with further trauma or stressful events.”

:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream

http://psychology.about.com/od/statesofconsciousness/p/dream-theories.htm

Slumber System

Before the turn of the century, it was assumed that the natural state of the brain was awake, and that sleep represented a state of generalized decreased brain activity. In recent years however studies showed that injuries to certain parts of the brain could result in a sleep-like state, known as coma. This led scientists to speculate that the brain might not be so much “naturally” awake as kept awake by some distinct mechanism, probably in the brainstem. Scientists uncovered a system of pathways within the brain, arising from the brainstem, that stimulate the forebrain and cause it to remain awake. These “wakefulness” pathways consist of nerve cells that communicate using as neurotransmitters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Humans generally take about 90 minutes to complete a full cycle of REM and non-REM sleep. As dawn approaches, however, we spend more and more of that time in REM sleep and less in non-REM sleep. Above are EEGs (electroencephalograms – recording of the waves of electrical activity in the brain) showing brain activity at different stages of wakefulness. In the delta sleep stage (stage 4 of NREM), low frequency delta waves are produced. Children are champion slow-wave sleepers, which is why they sleep so soundly when being carried from the car to bed. Adults, on the other hand, get less and less slow-wave sleep as they age, which may be one of the reasons they wake up more often in the night. This is the stage in which night terrors, bedwetting, sleepwalkingand sleep-talking occur.

During REM sleep, most brain cells behave as active as when it is awake. The hypothesis that sleep provides a chance for the mind to restore itself then seems contradictory. Yet interestingly, it was discovered that the release of some neurotransmitters ceases during REM sleep, which disables body movement and reduces awareness to the environment – the body enters a state of near paralysis. The activity of the brain in this stage suggest the workings of the mind which lead to the studies on dreaming.

:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1006591-1,00.html

http://www.med.harvard.edu/publications/On_The_Brain/Volume05/Number3/Sleep.html

Jerome M. Siegel, Why We Sleep – the reasons that we sleep are gradually becoming less enigmatic

Thomas Edison claimed it was waste of time.

We spend a third of our lives doing it. Napoleon, Florence Nightingale and Margaret Thatcher got by on four hours a night. Thomas Edison claimed it was waste of time. If one can get by without the desire to sleep, one could watch latenight movies everyday like mad; stargaze all the time; always churn out last minute presentation overnight AND stay awake during the presentation itself etc. The amount of energy saved by sleeping for eight hours is miniscule – about 50 kCal, equivalent to a piece of toast. Now it does sound like a waste to fall asleep. So why do we sleep?

No one really knows why. What we do know is the effect of the lack of sleep. For all those who have pulled an all-nighter before, you would have noticed these common aftereffects of sleep deprivation: grumpiness, grogginess, irritability and forgetfulness. Concentration will be impaired and attention span shortened. According to studies, after staying up for about 18 hours, most people will start to experience bouts of microsleep — moments when you zone out momentarily. Reaction time slows down to that equivalent to a blood alcohol level of 0.05% (two glasses of wine). This is the legal drink driving limit in the UK. Your eyelids start to droop more severely, and by the 20-hour mark you begin to nod off. In short, sustained lack of sleep has serious impact on the emotional and physical health. 

Researchers have yet to find any vital biological function that sleep restores. As far as anyone can tell, muscles don’t need sleep, just regular periods of relaxation. Sleep or no sleep, the rest of the body chugs along as usual. It then seems to me that the function of sleep, if does not directly concern the physical body, could have something to do with the mind. Now I’m really excited about this project. 

:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1006591,00.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/articles/whatissleep.shtml

A Darker Note

Sleep as a state of rest; rest as euphemisms for death (based on an analogy between lying in a bed and in a tomb); “she was laid to rest beside her husband”; “they had to put their family pet to sleep”.

The Way You Sleep

Some scientists believe that sleeping postures can give an insight into one’s personality. You think that you always sleep on your right just because you don’t like to face the wall for instance, but it might be because you are actually claustrophobic or insecure backfacing the rest of the room. Professor Chris Idzikowski, director of the Sleep Assessment and Advisory Service, analyzed 6 common sleeping positions and found that each is linked to a certain kind of personality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3112170.stm

I think the percentage might not be super relevant as they probably vary for different parts of the world/ cultural backgrounds/ age etc I don’t know. So which is yours? As much as I am for the hypothesis that sleep reveals much about who we are, I’m not too sure about the broad categorization. Anyhow it’s an interesting read:

The Foetus (41%): Those who curl up in the foetus position are described as tough on the outside but sensitive at heart. They may be shy when they first meet somebody, but soon relax.More than twice as many women as men tend to adopt this position. 

Log (15%): Lying on your side with both arms down by your side. These sleepers are easy going, social people who like being part of the in-crowd, and who are trusting of strangers. However, they may be gullible. 

The yearner (13%): People who sleep on their side with both arms out in front are said to have an open nature, but can be suspicious, cynical. They are slow to make up their minds, but once they have taken a decision, they are unlikely ever to change it. 

Soldier (8%): Lying on your back with both arms pinned to your sides. People who sleep in this position are generally quiet and reserved. They don’t like a fuss, but set themselves and others high standards. 

Freefall (7%): Lying on your front with your hands around the pillow, and your head turned to one side. Often gregarious and brash people, but can be nervy and thin-skinned underneath, and don’t like criticism, or extreme situations. 

Starfish (5%): Lying on your back with both arms up around the pillow. These sleepers make good friends because they are always ready to listen to others, and offer help when needed. They generally don’t like to be the centre of attention.

If you’re wondering, I happen to be a freefaller (but I actually welcome feedbacks). According to Professor Chris Idzikowski, the freefall position is good for digestion as ”lying down flat means that stomach contents can more readily be worked back up into the mouth.” 

Nice. 

Sleep Cycle

Like I’ve thought, someone doing art and design naturally ends up a little handicapped when it comes to science. All this REM and NREM stuff is giving me a major headache. As an intro, I’ll revert back to using visual aids to ease my understanding of this cunningly expansive topic.

Stumbled upon this amazing visual summary of a normal person’s sleep cycle:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:

http://health.howstuffworks.com/sleepwalking.htm/printable

Sleep (not the same for all animals, here I’m referring to human sleep) is divided into 2 categories: REM (Rapid Eye Movement) and NREM (Non-Rapid Eye Movement). Referring to the above visual, stages 1 to 4 occurs during the NREM period and stage 5 is the REM period. The jagged line represents our brain waves at the different stages. Interestingly, our brain is the most active during the so-called deep sleep. 

Anyway, from the name, during REM stage, our eyes will move rapidly under the lid.. I wonder how people who can sleep with their eyes open will look then.