By: John Ottoson
Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with clenched fists or gasping for air? Have suppressed thoughts that conjure in your mind at night ever make it so you can’t go back to sleep?
Although sleeping is normal what is not normal are the dreams/nightmares that occur while your eyes are closed. Having dreams is normal in everyone’s life but the dreams some people have are far from it. Overall, there are four stages to dreaming. The first stage is just breaking the barrier of being conscious where a very calm noise or thing could wake the sleeper up. The second stage is just a deeper part of the first stage only it is more difficult to wake people up and the person sleeping begins to picture images.
In the third stage of sleeping the body is relaxed and the heart rate starts to slow down, going into a deeper unconsciousness. The fourth stage of sleeping is when people begin to dream. This is the deepest of all stages and it is almost impossible to wake someone up. In this stage, though, is where dreams take place. While in the fourth stage of sleep, people’s eye start to zigzag rapidly back and forth which is called random eye movement REM. Scientists are not sure why REM exists but are astonished by what happens. During REM the human eyes move faster than ever before; the brain also moves faster than it does during the day. Some scientists think that REM occurs when people are thinking about what happened during the day. Also scientists believe that REM helps humans remember what happened during the day.
A strange experience goes on in the human mind when it is asleep which causes some even stranger dreams. Here are a few from EHS students:
“Grew wings and fought crime for the pope” Sammy Muse(14).
“While at my parents house there was a small tornado and a big tornado both with hats on. The tornado’s were headed toward my grandparents house and were trying to destroy it” Amanda Pennington(12).
“I went to visit the house of tortured souls and to take and tour to meet all of them so they do not feel tortured anymore. Denzel washington was our tour guide and our first stop was at a giraffe guy which played with legos. He constantly complained about how his overalls had a missing button. The second person we visited was a girl who never sees the light. She lives in darkness only and had to communicate through a hole. The girl also had pins in her head. She complained she needed the light and always asked if someone would sell it to her. The tour ended with Denzel Washington to keep the elephants out of the lions cage” Kendra Cunningham(12).