The study, “To Sleep, No Doubt to Dream” was a sleep study done by a graduate student named, Eugene Aserinsky in 1952. This study was done to determine the average amount of dreaming done by each participant. Aserinsky’s research started out by observing infants while they slept. He noticed that as the infants slept, occasionally these infants would show signs of active eye movements. He theorized that these rapid eye movements occurred there was a possibility that this could be a sign of dreaming. Since he was observing infants, they were unable to inform him whether or not they had been dreaming. To prove his hypothesis that dreaming does occur during these stages of active eye movements, he decided to analyze adults.
Aserinsky and his coauthor, Nathaniel Kleitman recruited 20 willing participants and set them up with, “Sensitive electronic measuring devices [that] were connected by electrodes to the muscles around the eyes of these participants. The leads from these electrodes stretched into the next room, where the participants’ sleep could be monitored” (Hock 42). During this part of the experiment participants were woken up when any eye movement occurred, or even little to none and asked if they recalled a dream. There was a total of 27 awakenings during eye movement and during 20 of the participants said that they did remember dreaming and the other 7 times said they experienced the feeling of having a dream but could not recall their dream. There was 23 awakenings during no eye movement. 19 said that they could not recall a dream and 4 said that they felt like they had a dream but could not remember details (CITE STILLL).The dependent variable was whether the participants recalled dreaming. The independent variable would have been when the participants were woken-up. The control group would have been the group who was woken up during NREM (non- rapid eye movement) sleep, and the experimental group was the participants who were part of the awakenings during dream or REM (rapid eye movement) sleep.
What they found was that there are 4 stages of sleep. Stage one is the lightest sleep. Once your reach stage four you then you start to move back up through the stages into a lighter sleep. When you approach stage one for the second time, you enter your REM (rapid eye movement) sleep where you do most of your dreaming. During REM sleep, “Your body is immobilized by electrochemical messages from your brain that paralyze your muscles. This is most likely an evolutionary survival mechanism that prevent you from acting out your dreams and possibly injuring yourself or worse” (Hock 43). After this short period of REM you proceed back into the four stages of sleep called NREM (NON-REM). While sleeping the average person cycles between NREM and REM about five or six times. All of these discoveries were influenced by the findings of Aserinksy. This was around the time when William Dement, a student in Stanford University started his research on sleeping and dreaming.
Dements recruited 8 male participants between the ages of 23-32 and asked them to arrive around the normal time that they would be going to bed to begin the sleep study. Electrodes were attached to their scalps to record brain wave patterns and eye movements. During the first portion of the experiment Dement did not wake the participants because he wanted to establish their normal sleep cycles without being interrupted. The next procedure in this sleep experiment was to put the participants through a week of interrupted sleep. Every time they showed signs of dreaming, they would be woken up. After this they were given almost a week off, which was called the recovery stage, but their sleep patterns were still being recorded.
In the second part of this experiment only 6 participants returned to do more testing. Just like before their sleeping would be interrupted only this time it was interrupted during the dream rather than right before. Then just like before, another recovery period. In this experiment the independent variable was whether or not they were woken up when dreaming. The dependent variable is the percentage of REM sleep in recovery nights. The control group was the group who was not deprived of REM sleep and the experimental group was the group who got woken up as soon as they went into REM sleep.
Dement found that during an average night of sleep, which was 6 hours and 50 minutes, 80 minutes of dreaming occurred. They found that as the study continued the participants had to be woken up more frequently. During the nights of recovery sleep the average dream time was 127 minutes, meaning that there was a 50% increase over the average baseline nights. The average time spent dreaming after the awakenings was 88 minutes of the total time they spent sleeping. When this was compared to 80 minutes of dreaming, no significant difference was found.
Some additional finding were that you can be deprived from REM sleep if you drink alcohol or use drugs. Even those these substances help you to fall asleep, they suppress your REM sleep and keep you in the NREM stage while you sleep. In Dement’s early work he found that the brain synthesizes a greater amount of proteins during REM sleep than NREM sleep. However, after Dement studied a large group of people he found that by depriving yourself of REM sleep, causes no harm to yourself and there are no long term effects. From these finding we can conclude that REM sleep means that you are getting a good nights sleep, it is not essential.
Dement and Aserinsky’s findings played a significant role in later sleep studies and discoveries. Thanks to Dement and Aserinksy, people diagnosed with sleeping disorders can be monitored and treated accordingly. These findings relate to the four primary goals of psychology which are to find what is happening, why it is happening, determining when it will happen again, and how it can be changed.
I am now informed on how to better my sleep cycle which will benefit me in life. I now know the stages of my sleep cycle and what I can do that will help me reach my best REM sleep so I feel more rested and alert throughout the day.
Ciccarelli, Saundra K., and Noland J. White. (2014) Psychology. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Print.
Hock, Roger R. (2009) Forty Studies That Changed Psychology: Explorations into the History of Psychological Research. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall. Print.
Aserinsky and his coauthor, Nathaniel Kleitman recruited 20 willing participants and set them up with, “Sensitive electronic measuring devices [that] were connected by electrodes to the muscles around the eyes of these participants. The leads from these electrodes stretched into the next room, where the participants’ sleep could be monitored” (Hock 42). During this part of the experiment participants were woken up when any eye movement occurred, or even little to none and asked if they recalled a dream. There was a total of 27 awakenings during eye movement and during 20 of the participants said that they did remember dreaming and the other 7 times said they experienced the feeling of having a dream but could not recall their dream. There was 23 awakenings during no eye movement. 19 said that they could not recall a dream and 4 said that they felt like they had a dream but could not remember details (CITE STILLL).The dependent variable was whether the participants recalled dreaming. The independent variable would have been when the participants were woken-up. The control group would have been the group who was woken up during NREM (non- rapid eye movement) sleep, and the experimental group was the participants who were part of the awakenings during dream or REM (rapid eye movement) sleep.
What they found was that there are 4 stages of sleep. Stage one is the lightest sleep. Once your reach stage four you then you start to move back up through the stages into a lighter sleep. When you approach stage one for the second time, you enter your REM (rapid eye movement) sleep where you do most of your dreaming. During REM sleep, “Your body is immobilized by electrochemical messages from your brain that paralyze your muscles. This is most likely an evolutionary survival mechanism that prevent you from acting out your dreams and possibly injuring yourself or worse” (Hock 43). After this short period of REM you proceed back into the four stages of sleep called NREM (NON-REM). While sleeping the average person cycles between NREM and REM about five or six times. All of these discoveries were influenced by the findings of Aserinksy. This was around the time when William Dement, a student in Stanford University started his research on sleeping and dreaming.
Dements recruited 8 male participants between the ages of 23-32 and asked them to arrive around the normal time that they would be going to bed to begin the sleep study. Electrodes were attached to their scalps to record brain wave patterns and eye movements. During the first portion of the experiment Dement did not wake the participants because he wanted to establish their normal sleep cycles without being interrupted. The next procedure in this sleep experiment was to put the participants through a week of interrupted sleep. Every time they showed signs of dreaming, they would be woken up. After this they were given almost a week off, which was called the recovery stage, but their sleep patterns were still being recorded.
In the second part of this experiment only 6 participants returned to do more testing. Just like before their sleeping would be interrupted only this time it was interrupted during the dream rather than right before. Then just like before, another recovery period. In this experiment the independent variable was whether or not they were woken up when dreaming. The dependent variable is the percentage of REM sleep in recovery nights. The control group was the group who was not deprived of REM sleep and the experimental group was the group who got woken up as soon as they went into REM sleep.
Dement found that during an average night of sleep, which was 6 hours and 50 minutes, 80 minutes of dreaming occurred. They found that as the study continued the participants had to be woken up more frequently. During the nights of recovery sleep the average dream time was 127 minutes, meaning that there was a 50% increase over the average baseline nights. The average time spent dreaming after the awakenings was 88 minutes of the total time they spent sleeping. When this was compared to 80 minutes of dreaming, no significant difference was found.
Some additional finding were that you can be deprived from REM sleep if you drink alcohol or use drugs. Even those these substances help you to fall asleep, they suppress your REM sleep and keep you in the NREM stage while you sleep. In Dement’s early work he found that the brain synthesizes a greater amount of proteins during REM sleep than NREM sleep. However, after Dement studied a large group of people he found that by depriving yourself of REM sleep, causes no harm to yourself and there are no long term effects. From these finding we can conclude that REM sleep means that you are getting a good nights sleep, it is not essential.
Dement and Aserinsky’s findings played a significant role in later sleep studies and discoveries. Thanks to Dement and Aserinksy, people diagnosed with sleeping disorders can be monitored and treated accordingly. These findings relate to the four primary goals of psychology which are to find what is happening, why it is happening, determining when it will happen again, and how it can be changed.
I am now informed on how to better my sleep cycle which will benefit me in life. I now know the stages of my sleep cycle and what I can do that will help me reach my best REM sleep so I feel more rested and alert throughout the day.
Ciccarelli, Saundra K., and Noland J. White. (2014) Psychology. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Print.
Hock, Roger R. (2009) Forty Studies That Changed Psychology: Explorations into the History of Psychological Research. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall. Print.