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DREAMING EXPLAINED
Each night, we spend about one and a half to two hours dreaming. We dream about once every 90 minutes of sleep. The time you spend in dreams becomes longer throughout the night, from about 10 minutes to around 45 minutes or slightly longer. But what happens when we sleep? The stages of sleep There are five stages of sleep: four stages of NREM (Non- REM) sleep, also called SWS (Slow-Wave Sleep), and one stage of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. The most vivid dreams, and therefore the ones we remember the most, occur during REM sleep (though we dream in other stages too). One sleep cycle is roughly 90 minutes long. (NREM) The first stage is a transition state between wakefulness and sleep. This is the stage that hypnagogic imagery occurs in. It usually passes into stage 2 within a few minutes.(NREM) During stage 2, the body gradually shuts down, and brain waves become larger.(NREM) Stage 3 usually occurs 30 to 45 minutes after falling asleep the first time. Large, slow delta brain waves are generated.(NREM) Stage 4 is often called “deep sleep” or “delta sleep”. The heart beats the slowest and there is the least brain activity. It is during thisstage that sleepwalking usually occurs. After stage 4, the NREM stages reverse and move back to stage 2, and then into REM sleep. (REM) During REM sleep, some parts of the brain are nearly as active as while awake. In this stage, your eyes flicker rapidly (hence the acronym Rapid Eye Movement). Your body is paralyzed, probably to prevent you from acting out your dreams."Dreams are rudiments of the great state to come. We dream what is about to happen." BAILEY. The Bible, as well as other great books of historical and revealed religion, show traces of a general and substantial belief in dreams. Plato, Goethe, Shakespeare and Napoleon assigned to certain dreams prophetic value. Joseph saw eleven stars of the Zodiac bow to himself, the twelfth star. The famine of Egypt was revealed by a vision of fat and lean cattle. The parents of Christ were warned of the cruel edict of Herod, and fled with the Divine Child into Egypt. Pilate's wife, through the influence of a dream, advised her husband to have nothing to do with the conviction of Christ. But the gross materialism of the day laughed at dreams, as it echoed the voice and verdict of the multitude, Crucify the Spirit, but let the flesh live. Barabbas, the robber, was set at liberty. The ultimatum of all human decrees and wisdom is to gratify the passions of the flesh at the expense of the spirit. The prophets and those who have stood nearest the fountain of universal knowledge used dreams with more frequency than any other mode of divination. Profane, as well as sacred, history is threaded with incidents of dream prophecy. Ancient history relates that Gennadius was convinced of the immortality of his soul by conversing with an apparition in his dream. Through the dream of Cecilia Metella, the wife of a Consul, the Roman Senate was induced to order the temple of Juno Sospita rebuilt. The Emperor Marcian dreamed he saw the bow of the Hunnish conqueror break on the same night that Attila died. Plutarch relates how Augustus, while ill, through the dream of a friend, was persuaded to leave his tent, which a few hours after was captured by the enemy, and the bed whereon he had lain was pierced with the enemies' swords. If Julius Csar had been less incredulous about dreams he would have listened to the warning which Calpurnia, his wife, received in a dream. Croesus saw his son killed in a dream. Petrarch saw his beloved Laura, in a dream, on the day she died, after which he wrote his beautiful poem, The Triumph of Death.Cicero relates the story of two traveling Arcadians who went to different lodgings one to an inn, and the other to a private house. During the night the latter dreamed that his friend was begging for help. The dreamer awoke but, thinking the matter unworthy of notice, went to sleep again. The second time he dreamed his friend appeared, saying it would be too late, for he had already been murdered and his body hid in a cart, under manure.
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