🚀 go-pugleaf

It's small, but apparently some signals still get through.  As you know,
in REM sleep the body is essentially paralyzed, with both "input"
(incoming stimuli) and "output" (signals to muscles) blockaded.  I
believe the inhibition occurs in the thalamic sensory-relay nucluei
(raphe nucleus?  can't recall exactly).

However, some signals do get through - for example a dreamer who
has become lucid during a dream can move his (dreamed) eyes in a
certain pattern, up and down 3 times, for instance, and the pattern
will appear on an EOG.  Likewise if a lucid dreamer clenches his
fists during a dream, the muscles in his forearm will show a enough
activity to be clearly detected on an EMG, although obviously his
hands won't respond completely by clenching into fists (or the
person would have to be considered awake!)

The paper stated that the pre-arranged signals were detected in 24
out of the 30 reports of dream signaling by the subjects.  Shortly after
the EEG showed a REM sleep pattern, the EOG recorded the
prearranged eye movement, and shortly after that, the EMG showed
muscle activity in the left & right wrists (left for dot, right for dash)
that spelled out the dreamer's initials in Morse code.  Obviously the
subject population consisted of experienced lucid dreamers, but it
was an interesting study, and I mentioned it to make the point to
another poster that there is a lot of psychological research being
done on all aspects of dreaming...

Dan Lee


nospam!stenberg@cc.helsinki.nospam.fi wrote:

> In bionet.neuroscience Dan & Susan Lee <danlee@gate.net> wrote:
> > on an electrooculogram.  Then - while still dreaming - squeezed
> > the left and right fists in a morse code sequence that spelled out
> > the subject's initials.  These signals were recorded as corresponding
> > muscle activity on an EMG attached to the sleeping subject's
> > wrists.  All this while the EEG showed that the subject was
> > indeed asleep and in the REM state.)
>
> Please explain how voluntary motor output is possible in a state claimed
> to be REM sleep.
>
> Dag Stenberg
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> Dag Stenberg     MD PhD                    stenberg@cc.helsinki.fi
> Institute of Biomedicine                   tel: (int.+)358-9-1918532
> Department of Physiology                   fax: (int.+)358-9-1918681
> P.O.Box 9        (Siltavuorenpenger 20 J)
> FIN-00014 University of Helsinki,Finland
> ------------------------------------------------------------------