REM sleep and dreaming
Cambridge University Press eBooks July 14, 2011 DOI: 10.1017/cbo9780511921179.004 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Review Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Citations | 3 |
| Key findings | Argues that REM dreaming results from cholinergic arousal without waking's aminergic activation, producing less lateral cortical activity for cognitive control while midline limbic structures stay active, explaining phenomenological differences between dream and waking consciousness. |
Abstract
Among sleep stages, awakenings from rapid eye movement (REM) sleep produce the greatest number and reported intensity of dream reports. Dreaming is a conscious state that lacks the insight and cognitive control typical of healthy waking but allows the remarkable emergence of coherent narrative, vivid visual imagery, strong emotion, and sometimes never-before-experienced elements. Similar to waking, ascending activation from the brain stem, basal forebrain, and diencephalon produces the brain-activated state of REM and its associated dream consciousness. However, in REM, the neuromodulatory influences producing this arousal are largely cholinergic and lack the aminergic activation accompanying cholinergic modulation in waking. Positron emission tomography (PET) studies have shown that in REM vs. waking, lateral cortical areas subserving cognitive control and higher order cognition are relatively less activated whereas midline anterior limbic cortical and subcortical structures are equally or more active. Such differences in neuromodulation and regional brain activity help shed light on the neural processes producing phenomenological differences between dream and waking consciousness. Advances in neuroimaging techniques including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electromagnetic source localization are providing new details on the tonic conditions and phasic neural events during REM that may contribute to dream experience.
Comparable studies
Other narrative reviews on dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The cognitive neuroscience of lucid dreaming | 2019 | Review | |
| Sleep and dreaming are for important matters | 2013 | Review | |
| Nightmare Disorder and Isolated Sleep Paralysis | 2020 | Review | |
| My Dream, My Rules: Can Lucid Dreaming Treat Nightmares? | 2019 | Review | |
| Dream Recall: State or Trait Variable? Part I: Model, Theories, Methodology and Trait Factors | 1996 | Review |
Citations in the library
Cited by 2
Cites 16
- A default mode of brain function Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences January 16, 2001
- Breakdown of Cortical Effective Connectivity During Sleep Science September 29, 2005
- Decoupling of the brain's default mode network during deep sleep Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences June 19, 2009
- Lucid Dreaming: a State of Consciousness with Features of Both Waking and Non-Lucid Dreaming Sleep September 1, 2009
- Dreaming During Non-rapid Eye Movement Sleep in the Absence of Prior Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Sleep December 1, 2004
and 11 more in the library