REM sleep significantly increases the flow of red blood cells through the brain's capillaries.
Two-thirds of people report experiencing recurring dreams, especially during times of stress. Researchers evaluate how the phenomenon occurs, and factors that contribute to recurring dreams.
Effectively, mammals "dream" about the world they are about to experience before they are able to open their eyes and possibly before they are born. Researchers found before a newborn mouse opened its eyes, its retinal waves flow in a pattern that mimics the activity which would occur as the animal moves through the environment.
53% of dreams can be traced to memories, and of those, 50% are linked to memory sources of multiple previous life events. Additionally, 26% of dreams are associated with impending events. Future-orientated dreams become more prevalent during deeper stages of sleep.
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··4 min readInspired by techniques to train deep neural networks, researchers have proposed a new hypothesis of dreaming. The hypothesis suggests the strangeness of our dreams may help our brains better generalize our day-to-day experiences.
More than 80% of patients nearing the end of life reported experiencing dreams that were vivid, meaningful, and transformative. Patients reported the dreams made them feel supported, reassured and helped them to accept their impending death.
During REM sleep, people are able to interact with researchers and engage in real-time communication. The study reports while dreaming, people can follow instructions, perform simple math, answer yes and no questions, and tell the difference between different sensory stimuli.
Researchers say our dreams are reflecting fears and anxiety associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
New studies reveal COVID-19 is having a negative impact on sleep, spurring dreams that cause anxiety and emotional upset. Women appear to experience more disturbing dreams than men.
Using EEG to measure REM sleep allowed scientists to distinguish dreaming from wakefulness.
Aphantasia, a disorder in which people are lack the ability to mentally visualize imagery, is also associated with a widespread pattern of changes to other important cognitive processes. Many with aphantasia report a reduced ability to recall past events, imagine the future, and dream.
Researchers discuss how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting the quality and content of people's dreams. The stress we are experiencing may be manifesting in our dream content as we sleep.
