Lost Rem Sleep example essay topic

Dustin Roster General Psychology Tue 10-11 Thur 9-11 States of Consciousness Consciousness In 1960 a man named W. Dement conducted a series of studies relating to sleep. His main goal was to understand and learn about the effects of dream deprivation. His tactics would soon be very useful in the quest of answering some very complex questions. He started out with the idea of observing infants while they were asleep, without realizing that he couldn't get no verbal feed back from a new born. He then decided to choose 20 random adults to be his gin nea pigs. He would then end up putting these 20 individuals through a series of test and trials.

Dement did this by a series of awakenings through the course of sleep. He would monitor his subjects in another room by hooking up electronic devices to the patients muscles located around their eyes. The purpose of the electronic devices was to be able to wake up the subjects in two different periods. One being eye movement and the other no eye movement. He would then wake them up and ask if they could remember their dream. According to Dement 74% of the 27 awakenings during the periods of sleep accompanied by eye movement, could remember detailed visual dreams.

The other 26% reported "the feeling of having dreamed", but they could no recall the content in detail. During periods of no eye movement, there were 23 awakenings of which 82% did not remember dreaming and 4 of them said that they might have been dreaming but were not for sure. While his study progressed each subject would have to be awakened more frequently because of the bodies way of REM-rebound. Your body needs sleep and when it is denied sleep it tries to make up for lost sleep. Today we know that there are four different stages of sleep. One being the lightest and four being the deepest.

At the time, Dement had no idea that he was messing with one's circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm is like the body's clock in which it sends messages to your brain to let you know what your body needs. For instance if your body needs sleep you will then start to feel tired. The results could be used to improve interrogation tactics by utilizing dream, or sleep, deprivation. Dement did this by depriving his subjects of sleep. The body's continued effort to make of for lost REM sleep, can force someone to say, or do, something that they normally would not have done.

In one's eyes this may be considered wrong but to many others it's just a way of collecting better understanding. At the time Dement's study and results were not thought to be very important. Actually his study of sleep deprivation would turn out to be one of the most discussed areas of psychology. Dement study can still be beneficial by showing that alcoholics and drug users are deprived of REM sleep. These drugs do help you fall asleep but they also make you lack in REM sleep in which can make you remain in the deeper stages of REM for a greater portions of the night. It is for this reason that many people are unable to break the habit of taking sleeping pills or alcohol in order to sleep.

As soon as they stop, the REM-rebound effect is so strong and disturbing that they become afraid to sleep and return to the drug to avoid dreaming. An even more extreme example of this problem occurs with alcoholics who may have been depriving themselves of REM sleep for years. When they stop drinking, the onset of REM rebound may be so powerful that it can occur while they are awake. This may be an explanation for the phenomenon known as "delirium treatments", or the "D.T. 's", which usually involve terrible and frightening hallucinations (Greenberg & Perlman, 1967) This just proves how important his idea of sleep deprivation relates to more then just catching back up on sleep but can effect what you do. Dement studies prove to be very true with today's studies.

As you are asleep and while you enter REM sleep your eyes begin to move around as if you were watching something in your eye lids. In REM you are most likely to remember what your dreaming about unlike the four stages of sleep. With better technology they can monitor the brain's activity while in REM, your body muscles are relaxed but other body systems are still active. One thing that is for certain is that with out sleep there is no life..