Have you ever wondered what a dream is?

Dream Concept & REM

A dream is a succession of images, sounds ans emotions projected by the mind. Dreams happen during Rapid Eye Movement (REM) stage of sleep. In a typical night, you dream for a total of two hours, broken up by the sleep cycle. Other mammals and birds also have REM slpeep stages, but cold-blooded animals like turtles, lizards and fish do not.

Sleep Stages

Stage 1: Light sleep (drifted in and out of sllep and could be awakened easily); slow eyes movement.

Stage 2:Eye movement stops and the brain waves become slow with only a occasional burst of rapid eye waves.

Stage 3: Delta waves (extremely slow brain waves interspered with smaller, faster waves)

Stage 4: Almost exclusively delta waves.

REM (Rapid Eye Movement)

Stages 3 and 4 are refered to as deep sleep, that means it might be very difficult to wake someone from this stages. During deep sleep, there is not eye movement nor muscle activity. This is why some children experiences bedwetting, sleepwalwing or night terrors... or even all of them!

A complete sleep cycle lasts at least an average of 90 to 110 minutes.

Sleeping & Dreaming

REM sleep usually begins after a period of deep sleep known as stage four sleep. An area of the brain called the pons shuts off signals to the spinal cord, causing the body to be immobile during REM sleep, In other way, there are occasions the pons don't shut down the spinal cord's signals, making the person acting out their dreams; AKA sleepwalker. This condition is rare and known as "REM sleep behavior disorder"

The areas of the brain "turn on" during REM sleep seem to help learning and memory. Infants spend almost 50 percent of their sleep time in REM sleep (20 percent in adults). This explains why do children learn quickly. If people are taught various skills and then deprived into REM sleep, the often cannot remember what they were taught!

Now you know how important and pleasurable is sleeping... even in the classroom! Maybe, if you aren't that lost, you would learn in class even if you fall asleep! Such a clever way to learn!

This post have been made by Oscar Alberto from the Advance 3 course classroom to al my classmates and of course for our teacher Mauricio... Sleep, rest and dream well!!