Sweet dreams are made of this
1999; Elsevier BV; Volume: 3; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/s1364-6613(99)01337-6
ISSN1879-307X
Autores Tópico(s)Circadian rhythm and melatonin
ResumoWe have all experienced the bizarre and visually complex dreams that have been correlated with REM sleep. However, little is know about how the physiology of REM sleep produces the changes in mental activity that we experience as dream states. One theory suggests that dreaming might modify the strength of associative links within memory. Unfortunately, the possibilities for directly testing cognition during sleep are, for obvious reasons, rather limited. A partial solution to this problem is to study cognition immediately following awakening, during a period of ‘sleep inertia’ when properties of the previous sleep condition may remain. Stickgold et al. now report that the normal profile of semantic priming, a measure of associative memory processes, is altered when subjects are tested after being awakened from REM sleep 1 Stickgold R. et al. Sleep-induced changes in associative memory. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 1999; 11: 182-193 Crossref PubMed Scopus (212) Google Scholar . Specifically, when subjects were awakened from REM sleep, the amount of priming produced by weak primes (e.g. thief–wrong) exceeded that produced by strong primes (e.g. hot–cold), the reverse of what was observed when the subjects were tested during the awake period. The authors speculate that this result might provide an explanation for the hyperassociative aspects of REM dreams.
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