Aserinsky and Kleitman (1953) transformed our knowledge of sleep and dreams
when they monitored brain-waves, eye-movements and muscle activity in subjects'
sleep. Two quite separate states of sleep were clearly recognisable. One
- having periods of rapid eye movements (REM), a characteristic brain-wave
pattern, and where the bodily muscles were effectively paralysed - corresponded
with reported dreaming.
Another major discovery involved the effects
of drugs on sleep. If a powerful drug is taken, it usually inhibits REM
sleep until 'tolerance' restores the amount to the previous level. But
if that drug is suddenly discontinued a 'REM rebound' occurs - resulting
in far more REM sleep and, often, nightmarish dreams. The phenomenon is
due to chemical imbalance.
A DREAM SURVEY
Calvin Hall (1953) conducted a thorough survey
of 10,000 samples of reported drams from a 'normal' population. The most
frequent setting was a part of the building and the most common rooms were
(in descending order) the living room bedroom, kitchen, stairway, and basement.
Hall realised that most dream settings are
very much like our daily lives, but not entirely, because places of work
are not so well represented and in wakefulness recreational settings are
higher in frequency than in dreams.
Regarding the characters who appear in dreams,
for young (18-28 year old) people, they themselves appeared alone in 15%
of their dreams.
In the remainder (85%) the average number of persons was 3, including
the dreamer. These broke down as :
43% strangers
37% friends and acquaintances
19% family
1% famous people
Regarding the dreamer's family who appeared in dreams, the frequencies
were (in descending order) : mother, father, brother, sister.
Men were found to dream twice as often about other males than females,
but women dream equally of both sexes.
Older people (30-80) showed roughly the same
results, but incorporated more younger people.
Hall generalised by saying that children tend
to dream of their parents, and vice versa, and husbands and wives dream
of one another.
The top activities were (in descending order)
:
walking, running, riding
talking
sitting
watching
socialising
playing
manual work
striving
quarrelling and fighting
acquiring
Hall summarised : dreamers go places more than they do things and play
more than work ; the activities are more passive than active.
Reported emotion were (in descending order
of frequency) :
apprehension, anger, happiness, excitement, sadness. Sixty-four percent
of emotions were unpleasant and 18% pleasant, though paradoxically, dreams
were overall, judged to be more often pleasant (41%) than unpleasant (23%).
HOME