🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan8.004657.3960@spruce.pfc.forestry.ca>
     rwinder@PFC.Forestry.CA writes:

>In article <103986@netnews.upenn.edu>, rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu
     (Mickey Rowe) writes:

>> I'm very dubious that your sleeping
>>position plays that strong of a role in shaping the content of your
>>dreams.  
>>
>
>I still disagree (again from personal experience, though I doubt if it is
>unique).  Restricting leg movement (via sleeping cats, tangled bedclothing,
>etc.) results in a pronounced difficulty in dream walking.  

If I understand what you're thinking here, then this is incredibly
stupid (sorry to be so blunt; I don't mean this as a personal attack,
only an attack on the idea I think you're espousing).  During REMS,
all somatic musculature (except those necessary for driving the lungs
and, of course, the extraocular muscles) is actively inhibited.  The
phenomenon is referred to as REM atonia, and electrodes for measuring
EMG are typically part of the apparatus for determining when a person
(or cat, or dog) is in a state of REM.  If your limbs were restrained
during a dream, you'd have no way of knowing, because you'd never try
to move them during the dream (not you real limbs anyways).

>Ever see a time lapse video of people sleeping?  

Yes, mostly at talks given by people who *study* sleep.

>They gyrate like crazy, particularly with shuffling ankle motions.

However, if they move *at all* during REMS (when most dreams occur),
it is a sign of an underlying pathology.  As a person who shows
incipient signs of developing this pathology, I'm somewhat aware of
it. 

>  Sleeping in awkward positions often results in the
>position being translated to the dream.  Again, I believe that it is a matter
>of residual awareness in the L hemisphere, rather than switching awareness
>completely on or off.

I deleted the section in your previous post where you went on about
the R and L stuff.  I still don't want to get into it.  I haven't
gotten around to reading _Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain_ (or
whatever), but I *really* haven't liked the sorts of things people
seem to think after having read it.  The Sperry/Gazzaniga split brain
patient studies have probably been more over-interpreted than any
other set of experiments in the history of science.  It's fascinating
work, but it's a crying shame that people want to draw conclusions
like that hemispheres turn "on" and "off" in normal individuals...
Ick! 

>  RICHARD WINDER                    Title: Visiting Fellow

Mickey Rowe     (rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu)