The Theories of Dream

According to the textbook, there are rhythms of sleep. The first step is when we are still awake. For example, I usually spend several hours before I am able to close my eyes. Our brains emit bursts of alpha waves at that time. It is a slow rhythm and high amplitude (height). After closing our eyes, our brains go to the next step. It is called the first stage. Our brains waves become small and irregular and we feel ourselves drifting on the edge of consciousness and in a light of sleep. We are not awake at the time. So, we could not recall fantasies or a few of visual images.

The next step is the second stage. I think in this stage our dreams are started because our brains will emit occasional shot bursts of rapid, high-peaking wave. It is called sleep spindles. Minor noises probably will not disturb us or make us awake and then our dreams are started here.

The third step is called third stage. At this time, our brains occasionally emit delta waves, very slow waves with very high peaks. Our breathing and pulse have slowed down, our muscles are relaxed and usually hard to rouse. At this time, we continue our dreams deeper than the second stage. Furthermore, before we go to the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, our brains go to the fourth stage where delta waves have now largely taken over and we are in the deep sleep. It will probably take vigorous shaking or a loud noise to make us awake. But, I think every night when our brains have stepped on this stage, we are usually awakened only for a while and sleep again. In this stage, people probably do sleepwalking and usually talk with nobody with unclear words.

The fourth step is REM. It is usually called Paradoxical sleep. During these periods, vivid dreams are most likely to occur. We are able to remember our dreams because in this stage, our dreams reports are occurred eighty two percent of time when we are awakened during REM sleep. As we connect it with "Exploring the Dream World" theory,