The Persistent Paradox of Rapid Eye Movement Sleep (REMS): Brain Waves and Dreaming.
Brain sciences June 21, 2024 J F Pagel 4 citations
REM sleep was originally called paradoxical sleep because its EEG resembles wakefulness and it is associated with dreaming. However, dream recall and content are not exclusive to REM sleep; they also occur in other sleep stages. Two aspects of REM sleep remain paradoxically unique: its intracranial theta rhythm (5-8 Hz), which does not propagate to scalp electrodes, and its association with long, salient dream reports. The assumption that REM sleep equals dreaming led to a foundational error in neuroscience, as dreaming occurs throughout sleep in different forms. Few studies have compared dreams across sleep stages, so the most paradoxical aspect of REM sleep dreaming may be how little it has been studied.