Activation Synthesis Theory Of Sleep

Brief Background Sleep is an essential part of life. Everyone needs to get certain hours of sleep in order to maintain good health rather you sleep during the day or the night. When you sleep and fall into REM sleep (rapid eye movement sleep) the most vivid and "realistic" dream plays along inside your head. Some can be good and pleasant while other not so much. Dreaming is a heavily experimented subject in the field of psychology. Many theories are out there which some are actually false. Dreams is something we counter everyday (or at least we should since we need sleep), and consist of many aspects to talk about. Personal Thoughts/ Opinions
When I think about my dreams they usually have to do with something I did during that day.
One of the most known theories is the Activation Synthesis Theory. J. Allan Hobson developed this theory in the late 1970s after running an experimental study on cats focusing on rapid eye movement sleep (REM) (Domhoff, 2003). The Activation Synthesis Theory simply states that our cerebral cortex is trying to interpret random electrical activity we have while sleeping. Hobson argued and quoted that random electrical signals from the brainstem force the cortex to make “the best of a bad job in producing even partially coherent dream imagery from the relatively noisy signals sent up to it from the brainstem” (Domhoff, 2003). This is known to as in why our dreams sometimes makes no sense. His explanation was made to purposely make a challenge with Freud theory and to try to come out with more accurate results (Domhoff, 2003). Hobson continued to work in the laboratory to confirm his theory on dreaming during REM
A lot of new information has been updated due to better technology. Dreams most likely occur and arise during rapid eye movement sleep (Stickgold, 2013). REM sleep is when we experience the good intense dreams. Dreams provide a reality model inside your mind that is extremely important to the development of consciousness when you wake up (MacDuffie and Mashour, 2010). Most of the time, dreams consist of fantasies or wishes that you wish would be fulfill (MacDuffie and Mashour, 2010). Other theories such as the Information Processing Theory states that dreams are the way to deal with stresses we encounter in our lives. While investigating the case of a victim who lost their ability to dream found out that dreams originate from back of the brain known as the occipital lobe (Phillips, 2004). There is many known information about why dreaming occurs which can make someone write on it for days. Limitations
As in every research paper, there was a number of limitation that had a effect in my research. Even though the subject of dreaming is a well-studied topic, it is quite hard to gain correct information. There are many theories out there that are not accurate since they are not backed up with proper research. There is also many old theories that are outdated which its information is not quite right any longer.