Sleeping and Dreaming CheckPoint
PSY 240 The Brain, The Body, and The Mind
January 18, 2012
Windy Baker Kuntz

There are two main types of sleep; first you have Non-Rapid Eye Movement Sleep or NREM (also known as quiet sleep and Rapid Eye Movement Sleep or REM (also known as active sleep or paradoxical sleep. This is broken down into five stages.
The first stage is the beginning of the sleep cycle. It is considered to be a light stage of sleep. It is a transition period between wakefulness and sleep. Stage one lasts only a brief time (around 5-10 minutes).
The second stage is when the brain begins to produce bursts of rapid, rhythmic brain wave activity known as sleep spindles. This only lasts for about 20 minutes and your body tempiture begins to decrease and the heart rate begins to slow down.
The third stage is a transition between light and deep sleep. Your brain develops slow deep brain waves known as delta waves.
The fourth stage is a very deep sleep that lasts for about 30 minutes, this is where delta sleep occurs and bed wetting as well as sleep walking is most likely to occur.
Stage five is where most of our dreaming occurs. This is where we have our REM sleep. Respiration increases and so does brain activity. REM sleep is also referred to as paradoxical sleep because while the brain and other body systems become more active, muscles become more relaxed. Dreaming occurs due because of increased brain activity, but voluntary muscles become paralyzed.
Our text lists two common theories about dreams, Freud and Hobson. Our text explains “Freud believed that dreams are triggered by unacceptable repressed wishes, often of a sexual nature. He argued that because dreams represent unacceptable wishes, the dreams we experience (our manifest dreams) are merely disguised versions of our real dreams.” Hobson explained that our dreams are “based on the