Nightmares+BH

Nightmares SCI Human Biology - 1 Assigned: 11/4 Due: 11/6

A NYT article on Nightmares by my favorite author, Natalie Angier

1. What does it mean to be "gainfully" employed (line 3)? he was a profitable man. He was a successful worker. 2. Look up the word "Damoclesian". What does it mean that the knife dangled with "Damoclesian contempt"?

3. What did the patient fear at night (2 things)? an intruder, child abuse (brought back memories of his abusive childhood.

4. How did Dr. Leving help this man? he asked him to reframe the dream and act out alternatives to swining 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 have had some crazy night mares. I have dreams where I am playing a sport and i can't throw the ball where i want it to go.. or i am playing tether ball and I can't hit the swining ball. So i keep on losing. I also have this really scary dream where my dad is in the hospital and he is blue. he only weighs like 11 lbs.. he;s al shrivled up and it is believe it or not really scary. the hospital people say he is in the hospital for being overworked.

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) sometimes your dreams can be so real, that you react almost violently... and you can't handle the stress. 7. What percentage of dreams are bad dreams? 60 to 70 percent.. 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? 50 percent.. rapid eye movement sleep.. 9. How much time do we spend dreaming each night?

on wikipedia it says we often dream at the last parts of our sleep cycle we dream towards the end of our sleep time.. 10. How does the frequency of nightmares change as we age? (Be specific with ages and number of nightmares) you have nightmares when you are a child the most. we also have nghtmares during periods of change within our bodies.. like when we are rapidly aging. women sometimes get nightmares during meopause.. periods when your body is experiencing rapid growth. it also differs from person to person.. some people never get nightmares.. when others get nightmares almost every night.. 11. Which parts of the brain are active during dreaming (Be specific, name the parts and their function)? fthe flow of information between the hippocamus and neocortex is reduced. the stress level is increased.. sometimes kicking in adrenal fluids.

12. What is the possible function of bad dreams? And why are nightmares disfunctional?

bad dreams represent several things.. sometimes they represent failure, "fear extinciton", they bring back memories,ect. the bad dreasm might teach the brain what to be afraid of.