Sorry to disappoint any MLK fans out there, but this post has nothing to with the great man's inspirational speach. However, it is a refreshing break to all the talk from colleagues at the newly renamed 'Phenomenol Four', who all seem to bash love or religion (although I do condone this talk).
I find it quite interesting that we all have had rather weird dreams in our lives, a dream I had the other day is included in this list (farmers in a school, and no it wasn't a sex dream!).
However, the factor I find most amazing is that dreams don't actually last the whole night, they last only a few minutes. And you can only remember dreams which occur through the state of 'rapid-eye movement, Rapid eye movement sleep sleep is the portion of sleep when there are rapid eye movements (REMs- pretty self-explanitory really! Dreams occur during REM sleep.
According to http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=8681, We typically have 3 to 5 periods of REM sleep per night. They occur at intervals of 1-2 hours and are quite variable in length. An episode of REM sleep may last 5 minutes or over an hour. About 20% of sleep is REM sleep. If you sleep 7-8 hours a night, perhaps an hour and half of that time, 90 minutes, is REM sleep.
Now some of you may be thinking, "Hey Lee, you've had quite enough to drink now!" (I haven't had any...), but it is quite interesting to learn that episodes that seem to last all night, are no more that a few minutes in length.
Let me know your thoughts...
Lee :-D
