REM dreams as a wake state but chained by atonia

Abstract

Rapid Eye Movement (REM) dream science seems to allow its investigators to ignore circumstances where REM could be identified as a wake state. In section “B”, the behaviors observed in three recent investigations during REM are suggestive of wake but wake was not mentioned to explain the behaviors. Otherwise excellent studies by these research teams occurred in circumstances where wake was a plausible explanation, and may have been the best explanation.

In drafting section “C”, where I need recourse to Kuhn and Fleck, I was reminded of my former legal work for injury claimants with PTSD. I commonly saw improvement in pain and PTSD when nightmares of the accident were reduced. Achieving fewer nightmares sometimes seemed to be wilful acts, or wished for. If dreams are an ancient wake function where we are held immobile by atonia, a nightmare reduction might occur by intention, as if nightmares are still a wake function. I recalled these events when I read about studies in the Sleep Lab at Technion, where Holocaust survivors were somehow able to suppress their dreams during REM-W, as if they were wake thoughts. Reduced nightmares may for some be a voluntary wake act while in REM.

Fascinating work by Rial et al delves into the chain of wake, sleep, bask, wake, from chordates through reptiles to mammals, in section “F”.

Take note that “words” are frequent objects of comment in this essay.

My overall analysis links features of dream science to a discovery by Tsai et al (2021), which I came upon in 2024. In mouse lungs they found more Red Blood Cells (RBC) are oxygenated (O₂) during Rapid Eye Movement (REM), while equal but fewer RBC are supplied with O₂ during Slow Wave Sleep & Wake.