Sleep

Sadie Rodriguez and

Shania Portilla

Research Questions
Q1:
Why and how do we dream?
I chose this because I think it's fascinating how our minds can create stories out of memories.

Q2:
Why do people sleep walk?

Questions we had
Q1:
What happens in the REM stage ?
What is happening to your body while you are dreaming?
Can dream interpretations actually be an accurate representation of a persons
emotional state ?
Q2:
Why do we need sleep?
What happens while we sleep?
What is sleep walking?

Q1 and Q2: What We Already Knew

Dreams are successions of ideas, images, ideas, emotions and
sensations.
Usually occurs involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of
sleep
Occurs in REM
Sleepwalking common in children.
Not a lot of people remember what happens when they sleepwalk.

Sleep
Nervous system relatively inactive.
Need sleep to grow and develop
Perform better on memory tasks.
Children acquire language, social, and motor skills.
Different stages we go through while we sleep.

Stages of Sleep
Stage 1
Between being awake and falling asleep
Light sleep

Stage 2
Breathing and heart rate are regular
Disengage from surroundings

Stage 3 & 4
Deepest and most restorative sleep
Energy is restored
Muscles more relaxed , Breathing becomes slower.

REM
Rapid Eye Movement
Sometimes known as paradoxical sleep or desynchronized sleep
The chemical activity that regulates the REM stage is in the Brain Stem
Bursts of PGO waves
Clusters every 6 seconds for 1-2 minutes during transition from deep to paradoxical sleep

An abundance of neurotransmitter acetylcholine that is combined with the

absence of monoamine transmitters
Histamine
Serotonin

What happens to our body while we

are dreaming ?
Our breathing becomes irregular
Our limb muscles become temporarily paralyzed
Our eyes begin to jerk
Our brain activity is really high
Similar to being awake

Sleepwalking
Somnambulism
Behavior disorder during sleep.

Triggers
Medication
Alcohol (adults)
Sleep deprived
Sleep Apnea

Symptoms
Sitting up in bed
Walking

Can dream interpretations actually

represent a persons emotional
Sigmund freud
state
? claimed that dreams let us resolve unconscious urges that we
suppress when we are awake

There is a recent theory that says dreams reflect the new memories that are
consolidated and integrated into the mind during stage 3 and 4.
HOWEVER, it cant truly be proven..
So it's not truly known if thats true

What we learned about dreaming

Dreams usually happens when brain activity is high
It's similar to being awake
The average person has 3-5 dreams per night (maybe even 7)
Can last a few seconds or 20-30 minutes
During REM the brain will often deploy safety measures to ensure it isnt
disrupted.
Like false awakening which the dreamer will dream that he/she is awake its a
dream within a dream.
However, I still want to know why we dream ?

resources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream#cite_note-1
https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/dreaming
http://www.medicaldaily.com/rem-dreams-and-brain-waves-explained-what-happe
ns-brain-when-we-sleep-272580
https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-disorders-problems/sleep-apnea/page/0/1
https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-disorders-problems/abnormal-sleep-behaviors/s
leepwalking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_eye_movement_sleep