Sleep Dreams

Solms (2000 see also Chapter 7) has observed that suppression of cortical dopaminergic afferents abolishes dreaming. Dopamine therefore appears to be a neurotransmitter keystone of the common features of REM sleep, dreaming and schizophrenia. 

Disturbance of arousal Disorders of sleep, dreaming and wakefulness... 

Another controversial but exciting area of research is the potential role of serotonin in sleep. 5-Hydroxytryptamine may trigger slow-wave sleep (non-REM sleep), whereas the muscarinic AChR and NE are involved in REM sleep (rapid-eye-movement sleep, paradoxical sleep, dream sleep). In addition to the aminergic regulation of sleep, recent research has identified several other presumed sleep factors delta-sleep-inducing peptide, sleep-promoting substance, interleukin-1, and muramyl peptides. 

Suan Zao Ren is sweet and sour. It enters the Liver meridian primarily and the Heart meridian secondly. It can tonify the Liver and Heart blood, stabilize the blood and the Qi and is effective for treating restlessness and irritability, restless sleep, dream-disturbed sleep and nightmares. The strong point of this herb is that it can tonify the blood and... 

C. Dement, Ontogenetic Development of the Human Sleep-dream Cycle, Science 152 (1996) 604-619. 

Needing emphasis is that voluntary movement is difficult or impossible in both REM sleep dreams and deep trance. It is this feature—the loss of volition—that may be a deeply unifying factor, even if it is caused by quite different mechanisms. In any case, the threshold to movement, like the threshold to external sensation, can be voluntarily or involuntarily raised so that immobility is guaranteed. But this does not mean that movement cannot be simulated, imagined, and perceived as real. It can. And it is perceived, with spectacular verisimilitude, in both states. 

Several other formal features of Huxley s trance condition are of interest with respect to the analogy we have drawn with REM sleep dreaming. We first consider the relaxed posture, indicating a step on the path to cataplexy. In full-blown cataplexy, the assumption of a flaccid posture is associated with the inability to move on command and is thus similar to the active motor paralysis of REM sleep dreams. Anesthesia and amnesia were both present in Huxley s trance, although they tended to be selective, and when Huxley attempted to make them global, his trance deepened. Time distortion, a distinctive component of the orientational instability of dreams, was a robust aspect of Huxley s altered state. 

How, we wonder, would a PET scan of Aldous Huxley s brain in deep reflection compare with the images collected in outwardly attentive waking, deep sleep, and that most easily obtained altered state of consciousness, REM sleep dreaming My guess is that it would look more like REM than deep sleep or waking. 

Hypnopompic hallucinations clearly illustrate the continuation of REM sleep dreaming into subsequent waking. That is, instead of arising out of the blue (out of thin air, as we say), they simply continue an ongoing—and perfectly normal—sleep-related hallucinatory process across the line into waking. Practically everyone has had some experience with uncoordinated state transitions on arousal from sleep. Sleep walking, being unable to move, and persistent anxiety after arousal from a chase dream are some common examples. 

One of my patients regularly had a ferocious alligator come out from under her bed and snap its teeth at her This unwelcome bed partner only appeared when we were raising, or more commonly lowering, the patient s dose of amytriptyline, a tricyclic antidepressant that blocks the reuptake of the biogenic amines norepinephrine and serotonin (and so potentiates them) and also blocks the action of acetylcholine (and so enfeebles that system). Now that we know that REM sleep dreaming is... 

But the fact that we experience anxiety—often of panic proportions in our REM sleep dreams when the locus coeruleus is shut down completely—means two things that arousal—at least in the waking sense of the term—and anxiety are completely dissociable and that the brain-mind is capable of generating anxiety without the help of the locus coeruleus In fact, REM sleep dream anxiety cannot depend upon norepinephrine, or serotonin, or histamine either, which leaves dopamine and acetylcholine as the only two neuromodulatory candidates for... 

What REM sleep dreams teach us is that although nothing in the way of specific content can ever be predicted, we can be sure that our experience will always (1) be dominated by vivid sensorimotor awareness (2) have something to do with the recent and distant past (3) be a mix of emotions, some pleasant and some not so pleasant (4) be accompanied by some vain attempt to make it all cohere as a strong story that we can believe and tell with confidence and (5) we will remember some but forget most of it ... 

At the same time that I was observing the effects of these drugs on people that I knew, I was investigating the neuropharmacological basis of sleep, especially REM sleep dreaming, and it occurred to me early on that there must be some common ground between these two areas of work. And that common ground is what this book is about. 

Hartmann, E. "The Sleep-Dream Cycle and Brain Serotonin," Psy-chonomic Science 8, 295-96,1967. 

Examples of d-SoCs are the ordinary waking state, nondreaming sleep, dreaming sleep, hypnosis, alcohol intoxication, marijuana intoxication, and meditative states. 

Roffwarg HP, Muzio JN, Dement WC. Ontogenetic development of the human sleep-dream cycle. Science 1966 152 604-619. 

Roffwarg HP, Dement WC, Fisher, C. Preliminary observations of the sleep-dream pattern in neonates, infants, children, and adults. In Harms, E, ed. Problems of Sleep and Dreams in Children. Monographs on Child Psychiatry, no. 2. New York Pergamon Press, 1964 60-72. 

---