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Sleep is known to be important for creative thinking, but exactly how it helps and what role each sleep stage -- REM and non-REM -- plays remains unclear. A team of researchers have now developed a theory, outlined in an Opinion published May 15 in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, to explain how the interleaving of REM and non-REM sleep might facilitate creative problem solving in different but complementary ways.

Their model proposes that non-REM sleep helps us organize information into useful categories, whereas REM helps us see beyond those categories to discover unexpected connections.

Meanwhile, evidence suggests that ponto-geniculo-occipital waves cause areas of the cortex to randomly activate, which could trigger the replay of memories from different schemas.

A new study suggests that people who naturally get more REM sleep may be less sensitive to frightening things.

For the study, a team of researchers from Rutgers University sent 17 subjects home with sleep-monitoring devices—headbands that monitor their brain waves, wristbands that track arm movements, and sleep logs—and asked them to sleep as they normally would for a week. They were monitoring how much sleep they were getting—especially REM, or rapid-eye-movement sleep.

Each night, most people sleep about seven or eight hours, about two hours of which is REM sleep, the stage of sleep in which the body relaxes fully and most dreams occur.

In reality though, narcolepsy, cataplexy, and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder are all serious sleep-related illnesses. Researchers at the University of Tsukuba led by Professor Takeshi Sakurai have found neurons in the brain that link all three disorders and could provide a target for treatments.

In reality though, narcolepsy, cataplexy, and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder are all serious sleep-related illnesses. Researchers at the University of Tsukuba led by Professor Takeshi Sakurai have found neurons in the brain that link all three disorders and could provide a target for treatments.

Instead of being still during REM sleep, muscles move around, often going as far as to stand up and jump, yell, or punch.

In an extensive 2012 literature review, the psychologist Matthew Merced notes that, even though nobody knows for certain why we dream, advances in the technology and techniques of brain research have at least helped explain how we dream. Humans, at least, dream a lot, multiple times a night, and the brain is very active during dream periods. Dreaming must be important, even if it remains mysterious.

Early dreaming studies were, frankly, pretty primitive. Researchers would wait for the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep to begin, then wake the subject up and ask about any dreams. Dreaming occurs during non-REM (NREM) sleep as well, but those dreams tend to be less vivid. Now, thanks to PET scans, it is known that large areas of the brain, covering such functions as motor control and sensory processing, all become active during dreams. Chemical changes occur as well, especially during REM: acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that fires up the brain and forces muscles to contract, ramps up production. Unsurprisingly, areas of the brain controlling awareness and consciousness remain dormant.

Assuming there is a purpose, natural selection suggests that dreaming must provide some sort of survival benefit. Why spend energy on involuntary movements and brain activation if nothing is being achieved? One possibility is that dreams are kind of a virtual reality world, a space where humans can safely practice coping with threats (being chased, for example, is pretty common). REM sleep and dreaming may also help process important or traumatic memories. Finally, there is a theory that dreams are a way for the brain to rid itself of information it isn’t using, a sort of “psychic disk cleanup.” According to Merced, any of these explanations could be correct. Sweet dreams to all, humans and octopuses alike!

“At least qualitatively, you see some shifts in content of dreams from the beginning of the pandemic into the later months,” Dr. Barrett said. “It’s an indication of what is worrying people most at various points during the year.”

Taken together, the papers also hint at an answer to a larger question: What is the purpose of dreaming, if any?

In recent years, brain scientists have argued that REM sleep — the period of sleep during which most dreaming occurs — bolsters creative thinking, learning and emotional health, providing a kind of unconscious psychotherapy.

these findings suggest that the neurophysiological mechanisms that we employ while dreaming (and recalling dreams) are the same as when we construct and retrieve memories while we are awake.

the researchers found that vivid, bizarre and emotionally intense dreams (the dreams that people usually remember) are linked to parts of the amygdala and hippocampus. While the amygdala plays a primary role in the processing and memory of emotional reactions, the hippocampus has been implicated in important memory functions, such as the consolidation of information from short-term to long-term memory.

it was not until a few years ago that a patient reported to have lost her ability to dream while having virtually no other permanent neurological symptoms. The patient suffered a lesion in a part of the brain known as the right inferior lingual gyrus (located in the visual cortex). Thus, we know that dreams are generated in, or transmitted through this particular area of the brain, which is associated with visual processing, emotion and visual memories.

General anesthesia has transformed surgery from a ghastly ordeal to a procedure in which the patient feels no pain.

“integrated-information theory,” which holds that consciousness relies on communication between different brain areas, and fades as that communication breaks down.

neural markers of consciousness—or more precisely, the loss of consciousness—a group led by Patrick Purdon

ccording to the old saying, the eyes are windows into the soul, revealing deep emotions that we might otherwise want to hide.

Although modern science precludes the existence of the soul, it does suggest that there is a kernel of truth in this saying: it turns out the eyes not only reflect what is happening in the brain but may also influence how we remember things and make decisions.

Our eyes are constantly moving, and while some of those movements are under conscious control, many of them occur subconsciously.

For years, we’ve been told how detrimental a lack of sleep can be for our mental and physical health.

But is it bad to get too much sleep — and if so, how much is too much?

“It’s important to remember that not everyone’s ‘too much sleep’ is the same,” sleep psychologist Jade Wu, a researcher at the Duke University School of Medicine, told HuffPost. “And sleep needs change over the lifetime. For example, a teenager or young adult may very well need nine or more hours per night, whereas a retiree likely doesn’t.”

Dreams are a universal human experience that can be described as a state of consciousness characterized by sensory, cognitive and emotional occurrences during sleep

There is no cognitive state that has been as extensively studied and yet as misunderstood as much as dreaming.40,42

Neuroscience offers explanations linked to the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep as a pinpoint for where dreaming occurs.28

When was the last time you disinfected your phone? According to a 2017 study, high levels of bacterial contamination can be found on the surface of cell phones.

Time magazine suggests that your phone could be 10 times dirtier than your toilet seat.

Frequently looking down at your phone for extended periods of time puts a strain on your neck