henry copeland:
- www.howsleepworks.com
REM sleep processes negative emotions?
Interestingly, some recent research has found that sleepers tend to report more negative emotions when woken during REM sleep than during non-REM sleep, suggesting that REM dreams and non-REM dreams may serve different (although complementary) functions in this regard. In particular, the amygdala, which specializes in dealing with unpleasant emotions (e.g. anger, aggression, fear, etc), is very active during REM sleep, and may be involved in the process of resolving emotional issues. This may be supported by the example of clinical depression: one symptom of depression is that sufferers tend to spend a disproportionately large amount of time in REM sleep, in which case these negative emotions may be over-represented, thus perpetuating the depression (deliberate deprivation of REM sleep is often helpful in alleviating depression symptoms).- www.howsleepworks.com