Scientists have unpicked the
regions of the brain involved in dreaming, in a study with significant
implications for our understanding of the purpose of dreams and of
consciousness itself. What’s more, changes in brain activity have been found to
offer clues as to what the dream is about. Dreaming had long been thought to
occur largely during rapid eye-movement (REM) sleep, a period of slumber
involving fast brain activity similar to that when awake, but dreams have also
been reported to occur during non-REM sleep, leaving scientists scratching
their heads as to the hallmark of dreaming.
It seemed a mystery that you can
have both dreaming and the absence of dreaming in these two different types of
stages. However, now it seems the puzzle has been solved. In addition the team
found that dreaming about faces was linked to increased high-frequency activity
in the region of the brain involved in face recognition, with dreams involving
spatial perception, movement and thinking similarly linked to regions of the
brain that handle such tasks when awake. Experts have hailed the significance
of the research, saying it could help to solve the conundrum of what dreams are
for, and even the nature of human consciousness.
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