REM Sleep

Ever wondered why most of your dreams occur during the twilight hours? It’s because of something called REMs or Rapid Eye Movement sleep.

First discovered in 1936 by a German scientist Richard Klaue, it is often considered the most important stage of sleep. This phenomenon is exclusive to mammals and brain activity increases substantially during this phase. It is also called as the Paradoxical Sleep as human brain often uses more energy in this phase and exhibits as much activity as when awake. But it is harder to wake someone when they are in REM sleep than any other phase as the muscles are paralysed and heart rate, breathing & body temperature become unregulated.

Strongly associated with dreams, learning, creativity and memory, it starts in utero and continues throughout one’s life. This is the stage when one experiences the most vivid dreams and is also the stage when people preserve their emotional memories. People are also known to perform better at tasks involving creativity like solving puzzles immediately after waking up from REM sleep. Whereas deprivation makes a person drowsy through the day, inhibits forming of memories and can lead to several sleep disorders.

So sleep well and dream on.