, they will spend some of the time in REM sleep, where their eyes are moving at a fast pace. Research has shown that when a person is in REM sleep, their brain waves are being monitored and they will look like they are awake rather than asleep. This conclusion that came from many studies is that when a person is sleeping and their eyes start moving, they are in the middle of a dream. It has been concluded that when dreaming, people are consciously aware that they are asleep. (Crisp, 182)Even though most of our bodies take a rest while we are asleep, our autonomic and peripheral nervous systems are still very active. There are also several changes in the body the blood flow to the brain increases, heartbeat becomes irregular, the muscles in the face and the fingers twitch, and breathing becomes irregular. We also lose control of large body muscles. There is a theory saying that the reason we lose control over the muscles is so we don’t act out our dreams. (Crisp, 186)People probably wonder how long we spend dreaming. In a survey among college-age adults, fifteen percent said they had a dream they remembered every night, twenty-five percent said they had a dream most of the nights, and one third said that they rarely or never had a dream. (DeLaney, 50) We spend much more time in the world of dream consciousness then we realize. The average college student spends two hours every night in REM sleep and this is divided up into four to six episodes. How long the dream actually last varies but the longest dream actually last about an hour. Many of us wonder why we don’t remember all the dreams we have in a night. It is because the dreams happen so fast. However, if we were to be woken during or soon after the dreams, we would remember it. (DeLaney, 132)We don’t just have dreams during REM sleep; it has been proven that dreams happen during non-REM sleep, too. The dreams that happen during non-REM sleep are b...
