4 ms·
These theories are fun, but has it been shown that dreaming is an essential part of the function of sleep? If you could suppress dreaming but maintain sleep, wo
by canjobear 5y ago
These theories are fun, but has it been shown that dreaming is an essential part of the function of sleep? If you could suppress dreaming but maintain sleep, would organisms still get the same benefit? Maybe what is required is simply a period of inactivity, and dreams are the effect of white noise cascading through the brain during that period.
- wiml 5y agoFrom what I remember, all of the phases of sleep are essential — if you suppress any of them, the person becomes unwell (possibly even dies). That includes the REM phase in which we sleep. I don't know if you can arrange to have healthy REM with zero dreaming, though.
- kayamon 5y agoI used to dream a lot; in the past year since I started taking THC as medication I haven't had any. I put this down to the THC basically letting you dream while you're awake, which seems to be more effective than doing it while asleep. As far as I can tell the purpose of dreams seems to be a way for the brain to visualize its own structure and repair itself (i.e. retraining your pattern matching on other inputs, not just visual).