The Long Road Ahead

On the possible function of dreams

Today we began our second week of orientation, and the faculty are priming us for the mental and physical challenges that will crop up next year. In terms of mental preparedness, we had a few lectures on the practical points of arterial blood gases, pulmonary function testing, and acute renal failure. We then had an interesting lecture on sleep deprivation, certainly a dominant theme for us next year. Interestingly, REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, the period of sleep during which story-like dreams occur, is essential to our perception of reality. The lecturer mentioned a study (I wish I had the reference) in which volunteers were hooked up to an EEG (“brain wave recorder”), which could help differentiate the different stages of sleep. Using the EEG as an indicator for sleep stage, the researchers allowed the volunteers all stages of sleep except for REM sleep. Within 72 hours, the volunteers were psychotic. That is, their perception of reality did not agree with the general perception of reality (seeing dragons emerging from the wall, for example). Fortunately, this was easily reversible with REM sleep. I just thought I’d mention this study since it sheds some light on the possible function of dreams. Perhaps we all need these abstract excursions of the mind in order to handle the restrictive truth of reality (or what we perceive to be reality).

On a less philosophical note, we got toys today! Everyone was playing with their pagers (self included), scrolling through the annoying rings, those piercing tones which we will all grow to loathe. We also were issued Palm Tungsten C’s, loaded with useful software such as Palm EKG, Shots 2005 (immunization schedules), and equipped with wireless capabilities to allow us to access resources on the Duke network. No Tetris… yet.

posted by Ashish @ 1:23 AM