LC-Nightmares

1. What does it mean to be "gainfully" employed (line 3)? serving to increase wealth or resources 2. Look up the word "Damoclesian". What does it mean that the knife dangled with "Damoclesian contempt"? Damocles is a legendary courtier whose sword is often used to refer to a precarious situation. 3. What did the patient fear at night (2 things)? The patient feared a female intruder and a knife dangling from the ceiling. 4. How did Dr. Leving help this man? They analyzed the dream together or "reframe" and then they thought of alternatives to swinging blades and frozen fear. 5. When is the last time you had a nightmare you remember? Do you mind sharing it? If not, please do so here... I had a nightmare that I was driving in a car and all of a sudden the car fell off the cliff and I was free falling to the ground but I wake up before I hit the ground. 6. What does she mean when she calls nightmares a "sensorily rich nocturnal roundhouse staffed with characters so persuasive you want to ... strangle them, before they can strangle you."? (paragraph 4) Nightmares are an entire world living in our head incorporating all of our fears convincingly. 7. What percentage of dreams are bad dreams? 8. What is REM sleep? (You may need to look this up.) What does it stand for? What happens during REM sleep? How much REM sleep do we get in a typical night's sleep? Rapid Eye Movement sleep in which the eyes are flitting behind your closed lids. The Brain is completely active and sensory skills are still active as well, but the body is paralyzed. REM sleep is where we dream the most which takes up 60 to 70 percent of our sleep. 9. How much time do we spend dreaming each night? It depends on the age and sex but 90 percent of our REM sleep is consisted of dreaming. 10. How does the frequency of nightmares change as we age? (Be specific with ages and number of nightmares) - Toddlers: none - 5-12: at least once a week - Young adults: the most bad dreams...this is where bad dreams peak - Middle-Age: 1 third the amount of bad dreams as the young adults. 11. Which parts of the brain are active during dreaming (Be specific, name the parts and their function)? The limbic system and the prefrontal cortex 12. What is the possible function of bad dreams? And why are nightmares disfunctional? Dreams could be an evolutionary tool for adaptation. Nightmares are dysfunctional because they never display a way out of the fear. Bad dreams serve as a resolution to fears.
 * A NYT article on Nightmares by my favorite author, Natalie Angier**