We experience a world roughly parallel to our usual visual-spatial one, though as noted, with some broader or wilder elements.
Furthermore, dreaming avoids the most "tightly woven," "over learned" portions of the nets. His research further shows that we dream very little of well-learned familiar tasks such as reading, typing, writing, or calculating, even when we spend hours per day of our waking lives on these tasks. (Hartmann 6)
Dreams contextualize emotion. Dreams notice similarities and produce explanatory metaphor. However, is this simply the way things are, or does it all have one or more functions? Is making broad connections useful in some way? Is picturing or contextualizing an emotional concern in pictured metaphor of use to us in some way? Perhaps not. Murray conducted research to answer these questions, which suggested that the biological state of REM sleep has a definite biological function for the body -- namely, restoration, or regulation of some kind and that perhaps that is all there is. Perhaps REM sleep plays its biological role in the body and dreaming is an epiphenomenon -- it tags along without any importance of its own. In this view, dreaming is simply what we experience consciously while REM sleep is doing its thing. In the 1950s, research with electroencephalograms (EEG) and electro-oculograms (EOG) at the University of Chicago provided evidence of a high incidence of dream recall in periods of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. During the 1960s, research on the correlates of REM dreams through sleep laboratories indicated the feasibility of studying children's dreams with awakenings during REM sleep. (Murray)
Research on human sleep is usually conducted in a sleep laboratory. The sleeper is prepared for electrophysiological measurements by attaching electrodes (a) to the scalp, to monitor the EEG and (b) around the eyes, to monitor eye movements, recorded as EOG. During wakefulness, the EEG...
Alpha waves are more prevalent when the eyes (Murray 303)
Links between sleep cycles and dreams have been made; we also learn that as we age the amount of "deep sleep" one may obtain is substantially lower than when the individual is a newborn or even a small child. There is however, a strong relationship between intensity of dreams i.e. how vivid a dream may appear to an individual and that individuals dream cycle.
A final point remains to be mentioned concerning the cycle of non-REM/REM sleep. While the whole cycle can be observed in small children, it is of shorter duration: forty-five to fifty minutes for a one-year-old, increasing to sixty to seventy minutes in children between the ages of five and ten. Older children then gradually develop the ninety-minute cycle typical of adults. In summary, we can say that some essential features of adult sleep patterns are already present in early childhood. As children grow, they tend to sleep less during the day, and the total amount of time they spend asleep decreases. The percentage of REM sleep drops from 50% to less than 25%. (Borbely 35)
Unfortunately there is not a plethora of information regarding dream cycles, however there is still enough information to give some insight into the world of dreams, there significance and there correlation to one's sleep. All of these aspects are interrelated and have roots deeply imbedded in the works of researchers to include Freud and the like. There is in turn a need for more investigation into dreams and there cycles.
Works Cited
Borbely, Alexander. Secrets of Sleep. Trans. Deborah Schneider. New York: Basic Books, 1986
Hartmann, Ernest. The New Theory on the Origin and Meaning of Dreams. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing, 2001.
Murray, John B. "Children's Dreams." Journal of Genetic Psychology 156.3 (1995): 303-312.
