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married, I had a child,
    I’d been in universities for twelve years with no degree to show for
    it. I’d already spent a couple of years horsing around on this. I was
    absolutely finished.”
    But after several more studies with additional subjects, the
    anomaly seemed to be real enough. He brought in a veteran sleep
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    scientist, Nathaniel Kleitman, and the two began to notice that
    during this stage of sleep the heart rate and breathing quickened
    and blood pressure rose. They noted that about four to five times
    during a given night, their subjects’ brains would suddenly shift,
    like a radio changing its frequency, to a very active and “wakeful”
    brain state. At the same time, the subject’s eyes would move rap-
    idly back and forth under closed lids.
    The results that sprang from these experiments led to one of
    the biggest breakthroughs in the scientific study of dreams. The
    two men proved that despite previous thinking, dreaming is not
    synonymous with sleep—dreaming occurs during a specific time
    within sleep.
    When it was time to name their discovery, they did what any
    self-respecting scientist would do and gave it an incredibly boring
    name: Rapid Eye Movement sleep (REM for short). However, even
    with a dull name, the discovery was profound. The bridge between
    the waking world and the dream world was found in the eye of the
    beholder. Science had figured out when we dream.
    ONE BRAIN, TWO WORLDS
    The dreaming brain might be more similar to our waking brain than we think.
    Professors Llinás and Paré at New York University argue that REM sleep
    and wakefulness are essentially similar brain states. The only difference is in the sensory stimuli coming in. During the day our experience is shaped by the sensory input coming from the external world, but when we dream our
    attention is turned inward. Our thoughts and memories become the active agents in creating our experience.
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    REM and Stages of Sleep
    While we don’t know for sure why we dream, we do know
    some science about the nature of sleep. Throughout the
    night, we cycle through two main phases of sleep: non-REM and
    REM. Non-REM (also known as slow wave sleep) is characterized
    by slow brain waves. Imagine it like a roller coaster—we rise and
    fall between different stages of sleep like the up-and-down journey
    of a thrill ride.
    In the beginning hours of sleep, our REM (dream time) is
    relatively short, five to ten minutes at the most. Most of our sleep
    occurs in non-REM. However, as the night progresses, the amount
    of time spent in REM increases. By morning, the other stages of
    sleep disappear, and depending on how much sleep you get, your
    last two REM stages can last up to fifty minutes each! Here’s how
    a typical night goes:
    Stage 1: As you lie in bed and begin to feel your body dozing off,
    you are already entering the first stage of sleep. This stage is the
    bridge between our waking and dreaming selves. During this transi-
    tion, you may experience images, lights, or other sensations, which
    are known as hypnagogic imagery. This is the time where you may
    experience hypnic jerks, those random twitches you get where you
    kick or spasm just before drifting off, a natural occurrence that
    your dog or spouse may know all too well. This stage is commonly
    known as twilight (think more Rod Serling than vampires).
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    Stage 2: This is your body’s prep stage. Here you’ve already fallen asleep, but you aren’t quite in a deep sleep yet. Toward the end of
    this stage, as you prepare for deep sleep, your body begins to lower
    your heart rate as well as your core temperature. Things are begin-
    ning to sloooowwww dooooowwwwn. No dreams here, my friend.
    Stage 3: Welcome to repair mode. At this point you’re in deep
    sleep. Like a computer rebooting itself, your body is rebuilding
    muscle and bone mass, making repairs to organs and tissue, and
    strengthening your immune system.
    We then begin our ascent back