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Some researchers argue that the perpetuation of a complex brain process such as REM sleep indicates that it serves an important function for the survival of mammalian and avian species. It fulfills important physiological needs vital for survival to the extent that prolonged REM sleep deprivation leads to death in experimental animals.
In his early writings on dreams, Jung considered the biological and physiological utility of dreams. He speaks of "functional automatisms which, like cellular reactions, necessarily find their justification" [E 2] in the dream process. Some dreams even enable the body to express feverish or sickly states, and herald future biological disorders.
Sleep can follow a physiological or behavioral definition. In the physiological sense, sleep is a state characterized by reversible unconsciousness, special brainwave patterns, sporadic eye movement, loss of muscle tone (possibly with some exceptions; see below regarding the sleep of birds and of aquatic mammals), and a compensatory increase following deprivation of the state, this last known ...
A dream has all features of primary consciousness but is produced in the brain without external stimulation. Unlike the waking state, the brain cannot recognize its own condition; that it is in the midst of the dream and is not the same as the real world. [1]
Most modern dream study focuses on the neurophysiology of dreams and on proposing and testing hypotheses regarding dream function. It is not known where in the brain dreams originate, if there is a single origin for dreams or if multiple regions of the brain are involved, or what the purpose of dreaming is for the body or mind.
REM sleep, also known as paradoxical sleep, represents a smaller portion of total sleep time. It is the main occasion for dreams (or nightmares), and is associated with desynchronized and fast brain waves, eye movements, loss of muscle tone, [20] and suspension of homeostasis. [21]
One of the important questions in sleep research is clearly defining the sleep state. This problem arises because sleep was traditionally defined as a state of consciousness and not as a physiological state, [14] [15] thus there was no clear definition of what minimum set of events constitute sleep and distinguish it from other states of partial or no consciousness.
This is the well-known first night effect. Complete adaptation to the sleep laboratory may take four days or longer, [3] which is longer than the duration of most laboratory studies. Also, the content of dreams at the laboratory has been observed to be different from dreams at home. [3]