Health & Medicine
What your Dreams Say: Can New App Decode your REM Cycles?
Kathleen Lees
First Posted: Sep 18, 2013 03:01 PM EDT
Dreams can be an integral part of your sleep patterns. Whether you're wondering around in a mystical haze of nostalgic memories, encompassed by happy thoughts and fantasies, or you've just realized that you're sitting in class naked, dreams say so much more than they show via the little movie inside your head. They're your subconscious telling you something that you might have missed.
Didn't quite catch your dream? Or maybe you never do. Well, luckily scientists may have discovered a way to look into our heads, even when we're not fully with it.
The development of Shadow, a new application recently launched on Kickstarter, may not only be able to keep track of dreams, but also chart the landscape of the subconscious, according to the organization's website. This device can actually help gather data from dreams and provide greater insight into our habits and behaviors, with the added bonus that the app includes an alarm block that can help the user awaken from deep (hypnopompic) sleep.
But how exactly does the dreaming brain function? Let's take a look.
Typically the brain goes through five stages of sleep. During the first stage, individuals enter very light sleep in which it is easy to wake up. The second stage begins a deeper state, and stages three and four represent our deepest cycle. Throughout these cycles, our brain activity is gradually slowing down so that the deep sleep cycles can begin, at which time we experience nothing but delta brain waves, or the slowest brain waves. About 90 minutes after sleep begins is when the fourth stage starts, and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep occurs--or dream sleep.
How Stuff Works notes that during REM sleep, several psychological changes occur, including quickening of heart rate and breathing, increased blood pressure and a higher body temperature. Our brain activity also increases to the same activity as if we were awake. Yet the rest of the body is paralyzed until REM sleep is over.
Do you think you'll be checking out this new application? Tell us in the comments below.
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First Posted: Sep 18, 2013 03:01 PM EDT
Dreams can be an integral part of your sleep patterns. Whether you're wondering around in a mystical haze of nostalgic memories, encompassed by happy thoughts and fantasies, or you've just realized that you're sitting in class naked, dreams say so much more than they show via the little movie inside your head. They're your subconscious telling you something that you might have missed.
Didn't quite catch your dream? Or maybe you never do. Well, luckily scientists may have discovered a way to look into our heads, even when we're not fully with it.
The development of Shadow, a new application recently launched on Kickstarter, may not only be able to keep track of dreams, but also chart the landscape of the subconscious, according to the organization's website. This device can actually help gather data from dreams and provide greater insight into our habits and behaviors, with the added bonus that the app includes an alarm block that can help the user awaken from deep (hypnopompic) sleep.
But how exactly does the dreaming brain function? Let's take a look.
Typically the brain goes through five stages of sleep. During the first stage, individuals enter very light sleep in which it is easy to wake up. The second stage begins a deeper state, and stages three and four represent our deepest cycle. Throughout these cycles, our brain activity is gradually slowing down so that the deep sleep cycles can begin, at which time we experience nothing but delta brain waves, or the slowest brain waves. About 90 minutes after sleep begins is when the fourth stage starts, and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep occurs--or dream sleep.
How Stuff Works notes that during REM sleep, several psychological changes occur, including quickening of heart rate and breathing, increased blood pressure and a higher body temperature. Our brain activity also increases to the same activity as if we were awake. Yet the rest of the body is paralyzed until REM sleep is over.
Do you think you'll be checking out this new application? Tell us in the comments below.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone