There are four stages of sleep, stage 1 occurs when the person decides it’s time to fall asleep. Initially in stage 1 alpha waves start waxing and waning bursts of 8-12 Hz’s EEG. This is when we are alert at our wake fullness. Stage one sleep RRG is low voltage but high frequency signal. As the stages progress into stage 2 there’s a gradual increase in EEG voltage and decrease in EEG frequency. Stage 2 has a higher amplitude and lower frequency and also has two wave forms, k complexes and sleep spindles.
Stage 3 is Delta waves, which are the largest and slowest EEG waves. Stage 4 is essentially the predominance of delta waves. Throughout the night the body goes through these 4 stages numerous times. It is a continuous cycle until the body fully awakes. Stage one is also the REM sleep stage and is where a person dreams. There are five common belies of dreams the first being, that external stimuli can become incorporated into dreams. Second, dreams last only an instant. Third, some people claim that they do not dream.
Fourth, penile erections are assumed to be related to sexual dreams. And lastly, sleepwalking and sleep talking occur only when dreaming. There are two theories related to dreams, the first being Freud’s theory. He believes that dreams are triggered by unacceptable repressed wishes, often of a sexual nature. The second is activation synthesis theory of Hobson’s, he believed that during REM sleep many brain stem circuits become active and bombard the cerebral cortex with neural signals.
He believes that a dream is the cerebral cortex’s way of taking all the random thoughts and making sense of them all. I agree with Hobson, I believe that all the random events throughout the day put together the dream. Freud’s theory does not seem legitimate to me because not everyone has negative or unacceptable wishes nor is every dream a sexual. More often than not my dreams comprise of random and often times very confusing acts. Thus is the reason why I agree with Hobson.
