Case Study: Full Night Of Sleep

1.) In this experiment, the scientists, Aserinsky and Kleitman, set out to determine whether rapid eye movement during sleep has a direct correlation with dreaming or not. In order to do so, they tested adults by allowing them to get between 30 minutes and three hours of sleep, filming the patients faces while doing it. They looked to see whether or not the patients were displaying rapid eye movements in their sleep, and if they were, the experimenters would wake up the patients and immediately question the on their dreams. After this phase, the scientists then allowed a new group of patients to get a full night of sleep, but still filmed them to watch for eye movements, and then questioned them upon their awakening. They asked the patients
We learned that REM stands for rapid eye movements, and is most commonly associated with the majority of dreaming. Another aspect of lecture that can relate to this study are some of the paradoxes of sleep. For instance, in lecture we went over the idea that sleep is an active process with many brain regions showing increased activity. This means that our brain does continue to work even while we sleep, further proving the study that Aserinsky and Kleitman conducted. Also, Aserinsky and Kleitman’s study brings to light another another concept that we learned in class; Subliminal Perception. For some of the patients who could not recall anything from their dreams, perhaps they could be considered to be attempting to tap into their subliminal perception, otherwise understood as thoughts and behaviors that are influenced by stimuli that a person cannot consciously report perceiving. The patients must have experienced some stimuli during the day that made them begin to have dreams in the first place, but when attempting to consciously recall they information, all that the patients could come up with was that they did indeed dream. So, perhaps it could be considered to be part of their subliminal