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Sweet Dreams Are Made of This

2001; American Association for the Advancement of Science; Volume: 294; Issue: 5544 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1126/science.294.5544.1047

1095-9203

Peter Stern,

Dreams have always fascinated humans, and throughout history there have been numerous hypotheses and speculations concerning their meaning and function. However, only in the second half of the 20th century, after the introduction of electroencephalographic recordings and the discovery of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, have these phenomena been the subject of serious scientific investigation. It is amazing that we can make incredibly accurate predictions about the movement or the composition of stars in galaxies millions of light years away while, much much closer to home, many crucial processes in our own heads remain shrouded in mystery. Every human being experiences the phenomena of sleep and dreams, and most people take them for granted without ever questioning what their biological purpose might be. There have always been teleological arguments for why we need to sleep, but they can mostly be dismissed as descriptive without any real explanatory value. Indeed, why do homeothermic animals need to rest and sleep at all, which makes them particularly vulnerable to predators? Wouldn't it be better and more efficient if they were up and running 24 hours a day? So it seems even more mysterious that during sleep we also experience periods of dreaming, with their sometimes bizarre, incoherent, and highly unpredictable contents.