JH+nightmares

1. What does it mean to be "gainfully" employed (line 3)? the line gainfully employed means that he was able to be successful 2. Look up the word "Damoclesian". What does it mean that the knife dangled with "Damoclesian contempt"? it means the the knife dangled with imminent despair and hatred 3. What did the patient fear at night (2 things)? swinging blades and frozen fear 4. How did Dr. Leving help this man? he tells the patient to re frame his dreams and make up alternate situations to happen in the dream 5. When is the last time you had a nightmare you remember? Do you mind sharing it? If not, please do so here... the last night mare i had was about 3 months ago and it was about my dad chasing me down the stairs and he had these dogs with him that were chasing me into the basement 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) she means that nightmares seems so real when they are happening and they have characters in them that are so real that you want to end them before they really hurt you. 7. What percentage of dreams are bad dreams? about 75% of dreams are bad ones 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? REM sleep is the time of sleep during the night in which we have dreams, it stand for rapid eye movement, and REM sleep accounts for 10% of our sleep each night 9. How much time do we spend dreaming each night? 10% of the nights sleep 10. How does the frequency of nightmares change as we age? (Be specific with ages and number of nightmares) When kids are from the ages of 5 to 12 they have about a 25% chance of having a night mare once a week because their body is changing so much the amount of nightmares goes up in adolescence. a 55 year has 1/3 the chance of having a nightmare as someone who is 25. also women who are going though menopause have a lot of night mares too 11. Which parts of the brain are active during dreaming (Be specific, name the parts and their function)? “The limbic system becomes incredibly active, much more so than when you’re awake, which is why you’re emotionally on edge in dreams.” "Blazing with particularly patriotic fervor in the limbic system are the amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex" 12. What is the possible function of bad dreams? And why are nightmares disfunctional? the function of bad dreams is to rid the body of the bad memories and thought that we have had. they allow though bad thoughts to escape the mind and go into the dreams so they no longer haunt us.
 * A NYT article on Nightmares by my favorite author, Natalie Angier**