sleeping and dreaming

• How does sleep help brain health?

  REM sleep resets the brain, memories consolidated, protects established memories, decision making, creative connections are made, toxins are removed.
• How does sleep help physical repair?

  Slow wave sleep helps heal cells, especially those in the cardiovascular system.

  Helps maintain hormone balance and increase immune activity.
• How does sleep help emotional stability?

  Reduces cortisol levels, a hormone related to stress.
• Beta brain waves

  14-30 Hz: Awake, normal and alert consciousness.
• Alpha brain waves

  9-13 Hz: Physically and mentally relaxed, awake but drowsy
• Delta brain waves

  below 4 Hz: Deep (dreamless) sleep, loss of bodily functions
• Theta brain waves

  4-8 Hz: Reduced consciousness, deep meditation, dreams, REM sleep
• Gamma brain waves

  40 Hz and above: still asleep but heightened perception
• Stage 1 - sleep onset

  Light sleep

  Muscles less active, eye movements slow, can twitch suddenly

  Can be easily awoken

  Alpha and theta brain waves
• Stage 2 - late night stage

  Eye movement stops

  Theta waves slow with occasional bursts of rapid brain waves

  Lose conscious awareness of outside world
• Stage 3 - light sleep / deep sleep bounaries

  Extremely slow brain waves

  Delta waves alternate with shorter, faster waves
• Stage 4 - only delta waves present


  No body movement or muscle activity

  More growth hormone released, which helps with physical repair
• REM sleep

  Breathing quicker and less regular

  Muscles temporarily paralysed

  Brain waves similar to when awake

  Normally 3-5 intervals of REM sleep per night

  Most dreams occur

  Starts short with long periods of deep sleep, later in the night REM sleep increases in length
• Circadian rhythm


  The sleep-wake cycle every day
• Exogenous zeitgeber


  Any signal that the brain uses for the purpose of clock resetting, eglight, food, exercise, social interactions
• Endogenous pacemaker


  Internal biological clocks that manage bodily rhythms
• Pineal gland

  Communicates information about environmental lighting to the rest of the body. Controls circadian rhythms; secretes melatonin: the release peaks at midnight and we sleep better when it is released; exposure to light during the night reduces melatonin production and release.
• SCN

  A part of the brain that regulates circadian rhythms. It delays the release of melatonin until dark.
• The role of the hypothalamus

  When we are exposed to light, it stimulates a neural pathway from the retina to the hypothalamus. This is where the SCN is located, which sends signals to other parts of the brain that control hormones, body temperature, and other processes that play a part in whether we feel sleepy or awake.
• Sleep onset insomnia


  Taking a long time to get to sleep but can sleep through the night.
• Sleep maintenance insomnia


  Wakes frequently during the night.
• Primary insomnia

  Not related to any other problems but are problems in themselves. No known cause, so most likely to be caused by bad sleeping habits such as staying up late.
• Secondary insomnia

  Stem from another problem which can be physical or psychological e.g. stress or depression or too much caffeine.
• Freud's theory of dreaming - the unconscious mind


  The part of the mind that people are not aware of but holds thoughts and memories.
• Repression

  The process of pushing unpleasant thoughts and experiences into the unconscious mind.
• Wish fulfilment

  Satisfying urges and desires.
• Manifest content

  The actual content of your dreams.
• Latent content

  The underlying meaning of the dream hidden in the latent content.
• Ego

  Obeys the reality principle (we can't have everything we want)
• Super ego

  The internalised voice of parent's and society's morals. The source of guilt and shame.
• Id


  Obeys the pleasure principle (every wish must be satisfied). Mostly in the unconscious mind.
• How do we access the unconscious mind?

  Freud believed the only way was to bring the unconscious into the conscious through dreams.
• Dreams - wish fulfilment

  When you dream, your ego's defences are lowered, so repressed wishes can reach your conscious awareness. Repressed wishes and memories are distorted in our dreams. The more unpleasant the wish or memory, the more distorted it becomes.
• Criticism of Freud's theory - The theory is too subjetive


  Dream interpretation is very open to opinion as a number of people can hear the same description of a dream and have different interpretations of it.
• Criticism of Freud's theory - It is difficult to test

  Its concepts are not objective enough and dreams cannot be easily verified. How do we know people are recalling their dreams accurately? A big part of the theory relies on the unconscious mind, but this can't be asked about/observed.
• Criticism of Freud's theory - Cultural and historical bias


  Freud's themes, especially how dreams were interpreted, my have been influenced by the culture at the time. E.g. in Freud's time society was very strict about sex, so the idea of repressing lust and desire made sense. However today people have more liberal attitudes to sex, but this doesn't mean that the manifest content of dreams are very different.
• Wolfman - sample

  Freud used the pseudonym 'Wolfman' to protect the patient's identity. Later revealed to be Sergei Pankejeff: a man in his 20s from a wealthy Russian family. In 1906 his sister killed herself and in 1907 his father killed himself, leading to Pankejeff's own depression.
• Wolfman - design

  Longitudinal case study. Carried out a series of interviews between 1910 and 1914, which he analysed 15 years later.
• Wolfman - results

  Manifest content:at night, lying in his bed. It was winter. Six/seven white wolves sitting on a walnut tree in the window. Big tails like foxes and ears pricked up like dogs.Latent content:Wolves symbolise the father. The wolves watching the dog were a reversal of the child watching the sex act. The tree represents the Christmas tree, wolves instead of presents. White represents bed linen and paren't underclothes. Big tails represent big dicks. Fear of wolves symbolise a fear of father.
• Wolfman - conclusions

  The unconscious mind can have a significant effect on behaviour. It illustrates the process of repression, where traumatic events are pushed into the unconscious mind as a safety mechanism. However, it also shows that repressed memories can find their way back into the conscious mind through dreams that people have and then recall.