"There are four stages of sleep officially denoted I, II, III and IV. They correspond to different depths of sleep - more deeply asleep would be stage IV and lighter or closer to waking consciousness would be stage I. Different things happen in each stage, different physiological processes and different brain frequencies. The visual dreams most people remember occur during stage I in the REM period," Webb says.
REM stands for Rapid Eye Movement, and it is the stage of sleep most people are familiar with. Very specific sleep processes occur during this period.
"That is a phrase going back to the early 1950's when a couple of doctors noticed babies' eyes moving at specific intervals while they were sleeping. They began waking up patients to find out what was going on during this eye movement and they discovered they were remembering visual dreams. So, we could say the rapid eye movements are roughly equivalent to the periods when people have visually remembered dreams. The original research was done 50 years ago or more and there have been new discoveries that actually show that other types of valuable experiences are happening all throughout the night and not just during the REM cycles -lots of interesting things happen in other stages of sleep too," Webb says.
By studying the different stages of sleep, scientists like Webb can get a better understanding of the mind body connection.
"One of the reasons we study the stages of sleep is to help us understand the physiology of common sleep disorders such as sleep walking, bedwetting, teeth grinding, snoring, and sleep apnea (which is when a person stops breathing during sleep). We can hopefully learn how to treat these disorders by studying the relationships between the physiological and mental functioning in the different stages in which common sleep disorders occur," Webb says.
Once sleeping specialists can identify how different stages of sleep are connected to sleeping disorders like Insomnia, they can help patients follow a daily regimen to attain a normal sleeping pattern.
"Probably the largest cause of insomnia in our culture is stress. It's pretty obvious, but we don't really do anything about it. A simple way to do something about stress is just to focus on being present and staying grounded in the moment instead of thinking, worrying, or going through problems. The ways to do this are to take a bath, get a massage, go for a walk outdoors, anything that brings us into the present and gets us away from our thoughts," Webb says.
So whether it is just out of curiosity or health related issues, the four stages of sleep are important to study. They give us a better idea of who we really are.
