Sleep is supposed to be a time of peace and relaxation. Most of us drift from our waking lives into predictable cycles of deep, non-rapid-eye-movement sleep, followed by dream-filled rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep. But when the boundaries of these three phases of arousal get fuzzy, sleep can be downright scary. In fact, some sleep disorders seem more at home in horror films than in your bedroom.

Dreaming is one of the most mysterious and interesting experiences in our lives.

During the Roman Era, some dreams were even submitted to the Roman Senate for analysis and dream interpretation. They were thought to be messages from the gods. Dream interpreters even accompanied military leaders into battles and campaigns!

In addition to this, it is also known, that many artists have received their creative ideas from their dreams.

But what do we actually know about dreams?

It has been a big month for dreams in the news, with the New York Times and the New Yorker both weighing in on the subject. First up, the Times reports on a new theory advanced by Dr. Allan Hobson, who says that dreaming exists as a "warm-up" state for waking.

According to Dr. Hobson, dreaming is "a parallel state of consciousness that is continually running but normally suppressed during waking." But during sleep, dreaming comes to the forefront of the brain's activity, exercising it and "tuning the mind for conscious awareness."

Hobson has long been controversial for his insistence that dreams are the result of physiological process and have no inherent meaning. His new theory draws in part on studies of the brain activity of lucid dreamers--people who are aware that they are dreaming while still in the dream.

Brain wave patterns during lucid dreaming show a typical REM sleep pattern associated with dreaming, mixed in with patterns associated with waking awareness. The discovery of these "mixed states" give validity to the notion that we can hold two (or more?) different states of awareness simultaneously, and should give rise to some interesting research on altered states of consciousness.

Margaret Talbot also has a great recent article on nightmares in the New Yorker. The article focuses on imagery-rehearsal therapy, a technique where nightmare sufferers imagine how they would re-script a frightening dream, then "rehearse" it several times during the day and just before going to sleep at night.

Imagery-rehearsal therapy is surprisingly successful in many instances. Talbot speaks to a wide range of experts on dreams and nightmares, and the article gives a thorough, well-rounded picture of current thinking on why we have nightmares, and what to do about them.

These are exciting times to be a dream researcher, and an active dreamer! For nightmare sufferers, there have never been so many good options for coping with bad dreams. And for those of us who have occasional nightmares but aren't debilitated by them, we can extend our understanding of why these dreams come to us and what wisdom they might hold, like never before.

-SOURCE OF ORIGINAL ARTICLE-

Though you can scarcely tell by the trailers, UNIMATRIX ZERO Episodes: 1 &  2 was part of the series, 'STAR TREK VOYAGER'. It dealt with the ominous species known as 'THE BORG' and what occurred during their sleep states (regeneration cycles). Only 1 in every million humanoids assimilated by THE BORG were capable of entering a dream reality where they could interact and form new lives away from the hive. There, these unique individuals plot a rebellion against the collective, which results in harrowing assimilation for various crew members of 'VOYAGER'. I was never a big fan of 'VOYAGER' but pretty much anything in the TREK universe that involves THE BORG, or the mischevious entity known as Q, is worth a look...

Vivid. Extreme flooding in the residential area that I live. Tidal waves crashing down the streets, cars being swept away, houses destroyed. Heavy rain and thunder. Elderly, bearded man comes to the porch and says something about Noah and the Bible and all things must come to pass.

Major waves, the rain stops, floods subside, I walk the street surveying the damage of a wrecked, gray sky. The street is demolished, trees broken, rubble, bodies, destruction. At the end of the street I come upon a school bus. The rap singer Eminem is leading little children on to the bus by rapping to them in a lyrical beat. At least 15 or 20 children herd themselves into the bus.

I walk in as well. Eminem gets back on the bus and holds a knife to me with a crazed look in his eye. I notice that the bus driver is very gorilla like and seems angry. Eminem seems a little nervous and worried, but threatens to cut me. We're driving, some kind of commotion rings out on the bus, and we flip over in a ditch, behind a parking lot.

I escape, and fly away. The children on the bus are being terrorized, underneath gloomy skies, and I try to find help for them...

Ha, just a strange dream worth mentioning....

A research collaboration led by biologists and neuroscientists at the University of Pennsylvania has found a molecular pathway in the brain that is the cause of cognitive impairment due to sleep deprivation. Just as important, the team believes that the cognitive deficits caused by sleep deprivation, such as an inability to focus, learn or memorize, may be reversible by reducing the concentration of a specific enzyme that builds up in the hippocampus of the brain.

EARLIER this year, a puzzling report appeared in the journal Sleep Medicine. It described two Italian people who never truly slept. They might lie down and close their eyes, but read-outs of brain activity showed none of the normal patterns associated with sleep. Their behaviour was pretty odd, too. Though largely unaware of their surroundings during these rest periods, they would walk around, yell, tremble violently and their hearts would race. The remainder of the time they were conscious and aware but prone to powerful, dream-like hallucinations.

The miniaturized wireless system allows patients to wear the device in the comfort of their home, thus enabling early screening of abnormal sleep profiles outside clinics. The sleep staging system has been validated in the sleep laboratory at the University Hospital Center (CHU) in Charleroi, André Vésale Hospital (Belgium), against a commercially available reference system. With this validation, the technology is ready for product development at industry opening new perspectives for remote and comfortable sleep monitoring.

Sleep disorder is a major health problem. 10% of the population of the U.S. is affected by sleep apneas, and 1 billion people worldwide experience some kind of chronic nasal congestion during sleep.