Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Behaviour, Subsequent Sleep, and Dreaming

TLDR

Dreaming is consistently linked to rapid eye movements (REMs), which are thought to reflect visual scanning of dream imagery and are absent in lifelong blind individuals but persist in those who become blind later. Dement and Kleitman recorded REM episodes occurring roughly every 90 minutes during undisturbed sleep, coinciding with the lightest stages of cyclic sleep depth as shown by EEG. Each REM episode lasted about 20 minutes, with 4 to 6 episodes occurring each night.

Abstract

In the course of the past few years, a series of related studies (Aserinsky and Kleitman, 1955; Goodenough et al. ), 1959; Wolpert and Trosman, 1958) has demonstrated beyond doubt the association of normal dreaming with the appearance of rapid, binocularly synchronous eye-movements. It has also been claimed that the rapid eye-movements (REMs) represent scanning movements made by the dreamer as he “watches” the visual events of the dream (Dement and Kleitman, 1957a; Dement and Wolpert, 1958). The REMs are absent during dreaming among those with life-long blindness, but are retained for some years by those whose blindness arises later than childhood (Berger et al. , 1962a). In a study of undisturbed nocturnal sleep by Dement and Kleitman (1957b) periods of eye-movements were observed to occur fairly regularly at about 90-minute intervals throughout the night in association with the lightest phases of cyclic variation in depth of sleep, as indicated by the electroencephalogram (EEG). These REM periods had a mean duration of about 20 minutes, and 4–6 occurred per night.