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:
“A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“... 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)
“More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!””
—Clement Clarke Moore (1779–1863)
“City people try to buy time as a rule, when they can, whereas country people are prepared to kill time, although both try to cherish in their mind’s eye the notion of a better life ahead.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)
“His reversed body gracefully curved, his brown legs hoisted like a Tarentine sail, his joined ankles tacking, Van gripped with splayed hands the brow of gravity, and moved to and fro, veering and sidestepping, opening his mouth the wrong way, and blinking in the odd bilboquet fashion peculiar to eyelids in his abnormal position. Even more extraordinary than the variety and velocity of the movements he made in imitation of animal hind legs was the effortlessness of his stance.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)