..dOts..

I had a weird dream last night, actually, I've been having strange dreams ever since I can remember! Who doesn't? When are dreams not bizarre?
Why and how do we dream? Same old eternal questions.
I've always viewed dreaming as some sort of entertainment. Really, I just miss the popcorn, err why do many people have popcorn with movies anyway? I digress.

It's always fun, even when I don't have a 'good' dream, it's some sort of escape from reality. And the possibilities of being or doing anything is just endless!

Here's a little background on sleep and the stages we go through, what I want you to concentrate on are the sleep stages and their associated EEG pattern (brain waves).
While awake we're alert and our waveform is Beta but being awake and merely closing our eyes, our brain activity changes and the waves become Alpha waves.

Stage1: Light sleep, in which young adults spend 5% of total sleep time. The associated waveform is Theta.

Stage2: Deeper sleep, young adults spend 45% of total sleep time in this stage. Waveform: Sleep spindles and K-complexes.

Stage3: Deepest sleep (25% of total sleep time spent in this non-REM stage). Waveform: Delta.

REM sleep: 25% of total sleep time is spent in REM sleep, now here's my favorite part, waveform: Beta!

It's the same EEG pattern as while awake and alert! And this has spawned the terms "paradoxical sleep" and "desynchronized sleep".

One interesting fact to note here is that during REM we lose motor tone (absence of skeletal muscle movement) so people who tend to sleep walk do not do so while dreaming, that occurs in stage 3.

Our brains also increase their usage of oxygen. And our pulse and blood pressure increase and are variable. Pretty interesting stuff.
Also, REM occurs every 90 minutes and the duration increases through the night.

Back to the eternal old questions, why do we dream? What are these dreams anyway?
We've all had our share of dreams which later came true or of those in which we saw people we had never seen and then one day saw them in reality and countless other freaky dreams.
It makes dreams just so mysterious.

People have been trying since the beginning of time to understand dreams, they still remain obscure. I just wonder if they hold answers to some timeless mysteries, such as the meaning of existence..