Sleeping and Dreaming

Hundreds of studies exist showing the many health benefits of green tea. But what makes it the most consumed beverage in the world after water is its pleasant taste and relaxation effect. Both of these qualities—and more—can be traced to a unique, neurologically-active amino acid in tea called L-theanine (gamma-ethylamino-L-glutamic acid).

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How have you been sleeping and dreaming lately? After two nights of strangely disruptive sleep a few weeks ago, a friend brought to my attention the strong solar storm activity that has been affecting the earth's magnetic field lately. I checked the solarweather website and found there had been a strong aurora coinciding with the two nights of strange sleep.

It has been well documented that the gravitational effects of the moon affect our biology. Could the magnetic radiation emanating from extreme solar events effect the brain's electrochemical processes?

An interesting theory about dreaming from a professor of ocular physiology in the Department of Ophthalmology at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center..

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I always like a good article about sleep...

Every night 5% to 10% of us wrestle with problems like this, usually followed by an inability to stay awake and alert the next day. Pharmaceutical options may seem easy, but they also come with side effects and the risk of dependency.

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Parts 2 & 3 follow..

Here's some interesting information about brain chemistry in relation to dreaming..

Dr. J. Allan Hobson, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, has spent more than 40 years studying sleep and dreaming. He is author of "The Chemistry of Conscious States" (Little, Brown, 1994).

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Just stumbled on this site, it's a pretty cool idea. Go contribute your dreams to the Collective Unconscious, or browse through the growing database.

The Collective Unconsciousness Project (TCUP) is not designed to be a finished project, but an evolving framework that changes by interacting with it. It exists as both an online community and personal space. The interface finds connections between dreams while exploring what it means to be dream-like. The navigation is purposefully non-hierarchical, based on chance and the user’s choices.

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An interesting essay by Doug Mann

Richard Linklater's 2002 film Waking Life is all about dreaming, and how we can sometimes lucidly control our dreams. Yet it's also about some broad philosophical issues, including one of the oldest philosophical conundrums, the distinction between appearance and reality.

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Sleep deprivation is a commonplace occurrence in modern culture. Every day there seems to be twice as much work and half as much time to complete it in. This results in either extended periods of wakefulness or a decrease in sleep over an extended period of time. While some people may like to believe that they can train their bodies to not require as much sleep as they once did this belief is false (1). Sleep is needed to regenerate certain parts of the body, especially the brain, so that it may continue to function optimally.

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Sleep talking, formally known as somniloquy, is a type of parasomnia, or sleep disorder, that involves talking during sleep without being aware of it. Sleep talking can occur during any stage of sleep, but it has been found that the lighter the sleep, the more understandable the speech.

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