In an effort to keep my brain moving outside of work and school, I'm spending a few precious moments per day reading some pages in this wonderful book called Your Brain: The Missing Manual. The title might sound a little hokey, but the book is engaging, research-based, and totally not dumbed down.
I'm currently in the chapter about sleep. Like we all know about REM sleep, right? It's when our brains are practically in a state of awakeness and we do the most lucid dreaming. It's a pretty amazing phenomenon, especially considering that we still don't fully know what its function is for our brain or body. It's always seemed to me like a manifestation of our brains trying to make sense of random snippets of information that we take in throughout the day. But REM dreaming might actually primarily be a kind of brain-trainer. We first really saw this in action from a study that was done back in the 50s, when the neurons that cause paralysis during REM sleep (yup, we're actually physically paralyzed during our most lucid dreams) were cut in the brains of a few cats; while the cats were asleep, they got up and did things like clean themselves, pretend to stalk and fight, and go through the motions of attacks and retreats. (I totally want to see a video of this in action.)
If television has taught me anything, it's that when humans break their sleep paralysis, they sleepwalk down to the kitchen and make a sandwich. (Although I personally don't remember ever making lunch in my dreams.) In reality, I guess it's all about what we're especially focused on. One study arranged for people to play Tetris before going to sleep, and the subjects reported having Tetris-playing dreams; even a few amnesiacs dreamt of columns of drifting blocks, despite having no idea why! So it's like the brain tries to determine what's important at any given point in time and then tries to train itself during unconsciousness. Much to the disappointment of Gary Wright, your worries of today are probably not too likely to be taken away on the dream weaver train.
(What I want to know is: why do our brains insist on training us how to handle the situation of showing up to a test naked and unprepared?)
In conclusion, the take-away point of my lecture today is that sleep is good, and I should get more of it. Personally, I don't think I get enough REM sleep; I'd bet that a few too many others are in the same boat.
This actually is making me kind of sleepy right now. Great. I shouldn't have done this before finishing my dissertation work for the night. And what if I start sleepwalking tonight while I'm dreaming about sleepwalking? Man, this is getting heavy...
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