Dementand Kleitman 1957

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Dement and Kleitman (1957)
The relation of eye movements during sleep to
dream activity An objective method for the study
of dreaming
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What is REM?

• R.E.M. is a rock band formed in Athens, Georgia
  in early 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist
  Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and vocalist
  Michael Stipe.

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No, but what is R.E.M. really.?

• It stands for Rapid Eye Movement
• It happens while youre asleep
• You can see it happening when the sleepers eyes
  are closed
• You can measure it with a device called an
  ELECTROOCULAROGRAM (E.O.G.)

• Aserinsky Kleitman (1955) had already shown a
  link between dreaming and R.E.M.

4
How else can you study dreaming?

• You can measure peoples BRAINWAVES while theyre
  sleeping
• You use a device called an ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAM
  (E.E.G.) which attaches to the scalp

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So what do we know?

• People go through different stages while theyre
  asleep
• Stages 1 is light sleep, stages 2, 3 and 4 get
  deeper and deeper
• These stages are non-REM (NREM) sleep
• Stage 5, the deepest, is REM sleep
• After a while of REM, you drop back to a lighter
  stage then repeat the cycle

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The Procedure

• Natural experiment in a lab setting
• Also a controlled observation
• Sample 7 men, 2 women (volunteers)
• IV woken in NREM or REM
• DV self reports of dreaming

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What happened?

• Ps turn up at the lab at bedtime
• They sleep attached to an EEG and an EOG
• A buzzer wakes them up at odd intervals
• They describe their dream into a tape recorder
• They are woken on average 5.7 times a night, 6
  hours sleep

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Any controls?

• No alcohol or caffeine drunk
• 5 Ps studied intensively (6-17 nights), other 4
  only studied for 1 or 2 nights
• This is to check sleep disruption isnt affecting
  results
• No talking directly to a researcher (demand
  characteristics)

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What was being tested?

• Did dreams happen during REM or during NREM? 
• Did the duration of the dream match the duration
  of the REM?
• Did the content of the dream match the direction
  of the eye movements?

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Do dreams happen in REM?

• Everyone had REM at some point in their sleep
  often several times
• REM matches up with fast low-voltage brainwaves
  on the EEG
• REM lasts 3-50 minutes (average 20) and gets
  longer as the night goes on
• Sleepers woken in REM usually reported a dream

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Lets see that as a graph
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Show me the figures
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Explain the anomalies

• Half of the NREM dreams were reported within 8
  minutes of leaving REM maybe remembered
  dreams
• Most dream-less REM was early in the night

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Lets look at individuals
Does anybody stand out as different?
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What about the length of dreams?

• Ps couldnt estimate this, so researchers
  randomly woke them after 5 or 15 mins of REM and
  asked them to guess
• Most Ps could guess correctly
• So it looks like time passes in a dream the same
  way it passes in waking life

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Lets see that as a graph
5 MINUTES AFTER AWAKENING
15 MINUTES AFTER AWAKENING
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Show me the figures
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What about the direction of eye movements?

• VERTICLE movements (3 out of 35)
• Looking up a cliff, climbing a ladder, aiming
  basketballs at hoops
• HORIZONTAL (1 out of 35)
• Watching two people throw tomatoes at each other
• BOTH TYPES (21)
• Looking at things close up
• NO MOVEMENT (10)
• Looking at things in the distance

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Discussion

• Does the evidence support the idea of dreams
  occurring in REM?
• Do dreams occur at the same rate as real
  experiences?
• Does REM reflect what youre looking at in your
  dream?
• What problems are there with this sample?
• Does this study have ecological validity?
• How else can dreams be studied?