Theories About The Function of Rapid Eye Movements
According to "scanning hypothesis" the directional properties of REM sleep eye movements are related to shifts of gaze in dream imagery. Against this hypothesis is that such eye movements occur in those born blind and in fetuses in spite of lack of vision. Also, binocular REMs are non-conjugated and so lack a fixation point. In support, research finds that in goal-oriented dreams, eye gaze is directed towards the action described by the dreamer.
Other theories are that they lubricate the cornea, warm the brain, stimulate and stabilize the neural circuits that have not been activated during waking, create internal stimulation to aid development of the CNS, or lack any purpose, being random creation of brain activation.
Read more about this topic: Rapid Eye Movement Sleep
Famous quotes containing the words theories, function, rapid, eye and/or movements:
“The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“... the function of art is to do more than tell it like it is—it’s to imagine what is possible.”
—bell hooks (b. c. 1955)
“he dreadful darts
With rapid glide along the leaning line;
And, fixing in the wretch his cruel fangs”
—James Thomson (1700–1748)
“His eye had become minutely exact as to the book and its position. Then he resolved that he would not look at the book again, would not turn a glance on it unless it might be when he had made up his mind to reveal its contents.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Who among us has not, in moments of ambition, dreamt of the miracle of a form of poetic prose, musical but without rhythm and rhyme, both supple and staccato enough to adapt itself to the lyrical movements of our souls, the undulating movements of our reveries, and the convulsive movements of our consciences? This obsessive ideal springs above all from frequent contact with enormous cities, from the junction of their innumerable connections.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)