Hi everyone! I read an article that says that your brain is just as active when you’re sleeping as it is when you’re awake. There was a study done where a group of men and women were brought in and had to categorize animals. Then they were put into a dark room and as soon as they fell asleep scientists measured their brain activity. The activity was just the same when they were asleep and when they were awake. However, scientists came to the conclusion that it took their brains two to three times longer for them to categorize these animals, but when they did, they did it properly.
Right?! That’s why I find dreams so interesting, because your brain is really remembering something that happened a while ago or even earlier that day. I’ve also read online that people are able to control their dreams in a way, by not seeing what your brain wants you to see at that moment. I also read about why you sometimes dream about falling and wake up startled and that is because you stop breathing for a split second, so your brain looks for a way to wake you up.
Your article is interesting, but I still have a few questions regarding this topic:
How does the brain process information while a person is asleep?
Which part of the brain allows the processing of information while a person is asleep?
Can other creatures process information in their sleep?
Can a person tell if they are processing information in their sleep?
I am very curious, so it would be awesome to get some feedback! For additional information about the topic, check out these two awesome links:
http://www.brainfacts.org/sensing-thinking-behaving/sleep/
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/brain_basics/understanding_sleep.htm
I found this post interesting. I had the idea that the brain is always active no matter if you are awake or sleeping, the fact that we have dreams makes our brain to transport us to another reality. Even though our brain is working the hole time, the brain goes to these “sleep stages”. These stages were discovered in the 1950s through experiments using electroencephalography (EEG) to examine human brain waves. What the researches found was that each night, over the course of the first hour of sleep, the brain progesses through a series of stages during which brain waves slow down. This period of slow wave sleep is accompanied by relaxation of the muscles and the eyes.
Over the next half hour or so, brain activity alters drastically, from deep slow wave sleep to rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, characterized by neocortical EEG waves similar to those observed during waking. The cycles of slow wave and REM sleep alternate, with the slow wave sleep becoming less deep and the REM periods more prolongued within waking occurs.
http://www.brainfacts.org/sensing-thinking-behaving/sleep/articles/2012/brain-activity-during-sleep/
I was surprised to read about the study you blogged about. I had always thought that sleep allowed your brain to rest so that the next day you could be refreshed. I was interested to learn that “your brain is just as active when you’re sleeping as it is when you’re awake”. When considering dreaming I suppose it would only make sense that your brain would still be functioning in similar ways as it does when you are awake.