Have you ever wondered what your pet dreams about when he suddenly kicks his legs while sleeping?
Maybe they're chasing mice and cats. Maybe they're inhaleing you for a snack. Or maybe they're just running around the house, smacking trash, scratching the couch, jumping to the bed.
It's difficult to say. But one thing is for sure. For years, people have linked these sudden convulsions to the dreams of animals and humans.
In humans, the deepest stages of sleep are convulsive in the hands and feet, but they also convulse in the eyes. These are called REM for short. And the science here is pretty certain. REM sleep is when we are likely to dream of.
In animals, scientists believe their convulsion limbs are also signs that they may be dreaming.
“I mean, I know there's a dream,” says Mark Brunberg, a neuroscientist at the University of Iowa, “So, 'Oh, move. Why aren't they connected? ?”
But then he observed a really young animal convulsion and said, “Newborn animals had little experience with awakening risk. What on earth do they dream of?”
If Twitching is really related to dreams, you will expect that you are older and the more you have more experiences, the more you dream, and the more you will be convulsive.
Therefore, to reach the bottom of this mystery, Blumberg began experimenting with a newborn rat. In his research, he surgically cut off the part of the brain responsible for creating dreams.
“It had no effect on convulsions at all, and I was like, 'Okay, what is this?'
Blumberg spoke Can't explain Host Nome Hassenfeld About this seemingly small question – why do we twitch during sleep? – We fundamentally changed the way we understand the relationship between the brain and the body.
Below is an excerpt from the conversation edited for length and transparency. There's a lot more to the full podcast, so listen Can't explain You can get podcasts anywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Spotify and more.
Now, Mark, before I dive in here, when I think about sleep convulsions, I think about those convulsions I get, like when I fell asleep.
Is that part of this? Is that different?
That's another phenomenon. It's more like what's called surprises than convulsions. When that happens, you are not REM sleep, and there are many theories about it, but the fact is that it is very difficult to study.
Well, if we're just talking about these REM sleep convulsions, how common is it? Do animals and people of all kinds twitch?
I have a website that collects all these different videos, but what you see in different animals is that the parts of the body the animals really really depend on, really bring sensory information into the brain It's dependent on you. So for us, rapid eye movements are eye convulsions. Also, when we become adults we tug our fingers a lot. In cats, you can see their feet moving a lot. Ferret and whiskers are visible. Rats, you can see lots of whisker convulsions. They use their whiskers to learn about the world just as we use our eyes.
And if all of these convulsions aren't just convulsions, then if you know, enact dreams, how do you start thinking about what they really are?
Well, the first thing you have to do is try to figure out which part of your brain is producing this. So, what about this? And what we began to see when we were recording brain activity was that the brains of newborns, baby rats, were much more active during sleep, and the animals were more awake than when they were awake. When you're convulsing, there's one thing that sleep has to do with its associated brain activity. It was a major discovery 80 years ago. Seeing a great brain activity is a whole other thing. And I mean that I'm much bigger during REM sleep than when I wake up.
And I think it makes sense to think that all of that brain activity is related to these convulsions, right? Is there a way to actually test it?
Yes, the biggest problem was the methodology. How do you record brain activity in a very small baby mouse, the best animal to do this kind of work? We must find ways to make these very fine electrodes into the brain so that they can be dropped. And it took years to proceed with the method. But what we're starting to see is that every time an animal convulses after 10 ms, the part of the brain that responds to sensory input in its limbs shows a large explosion of activity. So convulsions, activities. Twitch, activities. It's not the other way around. This is a sensory signal, right? So this timing here is important. If you have a convulsion, and if you get a burst of activity in the brain after that convulsion, you have a pretty good idea that it is the sensory signal you are picking up.
Yes, so the brain is like a signal obtained from nerves, muscles, etc.
Yes, sensory input. Therefore, every time you move your hands and feet, there are sensors in your muscles, and sensors in your skin and joints. And these sensors generate nerve signals that flow into the brain when there is movement. It's a way to know when our arms are moving or when we touch something. There are sensors all over your hands and feet. And when our limbs are moving, that's when we were watching the brain activity in parts of our brains that respond to these types of sensory signals.
oh. Now, you're essentially turning that head's traditional hypothesis overturned, right? Is it not a dream that causes dreams, but a convulsion that causes some kind of shock to the brain rather than a convulsion?
Yes, obviously, convulsions are not the only source of everything in the brain in dreams, but at least they provide sensory input to the brain during sleep. So it turns it over into your head and completely transforms the calculations of what's going on in your dream-like brain.
So why does convulsions occur in the first place? For example, what are all the points of this convulsion?
Well, this is where you have to start thinking about the special things about convulsions, right? The first thing you notice is that the movements are individual. And we see that discreteness is very important. So imagine you standing on a power distribution board with hundreds of different switches. Let's say they are neurons. And they say that all the wires from all those switches lead to the entire light. So all the switches control different lights, okay? And let's say those lights are muscles. If you're sitting on that switchboard and want to know which switch controls which light, you don't just start throwing all the switches at the same time, right?
If so, you don't have any information. All you're looking at is a lot of lights turned on and a lot of switches thrown. The answer is to throw one switch at a time, see which lights are on and create that connection. And that's the difference between wake movement and convulsions. I'm sitting here talking to you, and I'm gestured, and I'm moving all my limbs at the same time, my posture, my neck, my eyes, everything is moving at the same time Isn't it? It's awakening. One of the characteristics of awakening movement is that they are continuous and at the same time extremely complex. But when you are twitching, you twitch at once and ping your body. And the body pings you back. And I know that the first thing is related to the second one. That is the discreteness of convulsions. And it explains why these animals are so convulsing. You grow and never grow as you were younger.
So your theory is that the power goes out, you flip the switch over with the fuse box and see which switch controls which light because there are no other stimuli in, right? They are in a controlled environment, so are they essentially doing a kind of experiment to learn about their bodies?
Yes, exactly. It's like they're bootstrapping their systems. They self-organize the sensorimotor system, which is done from within. It's a big mystery as to how to develop something like sensorimotor systems. When you are a newborn or human and are born, you don't know how you actually learn about your body, or how your body is formed. You don't know how it works, and as you grow and realize new things, it changes every day, right? So how do you find a way to move that body in real time through the development process? You cannot prescribe this. This cannot be a blueprint. There is no genetic mechanism that can tell you exactly what you will be on the 5th and 5th day. Therefore, you need a highly adaptable system.
And if convulsions are about learning, we assume that young animals are more convulsive, is that so?
And I also twitch older animals.
Why do they convulse?
Good question. Firstly, when we get older, we don't get too convulsive. Secondly, some animals are quite twitching. And the convulsive body parts are important. And this is just a theory. Because no one really explores it on the refined level we need. But we have to adjust the system. During a tired day, we lose control. And you wake up the next day and you'll rejuvenate. For that purpose, I think that convulsions can last for some parts of the body throughout your life. Adjust your tired system. And there are some hints in the world where this can happen, including work done by humans. But they are primarily hints and need to be done more systematically.
And why do you think the scientific community has missed this for so long and didn't understand convulsions as a developmental process?
When labeling something as a byproduct of a dream, why does someone spend time studying it?
For example, is it just closing further enquiries?
Yes, I mean, I don't want to be too lighthearted about it. Dreams are fascinating, but when it comes to studying sleep, they are kind of red herring. In my opinion, there are many fascinating things about sleep that have nothing to do with dreams. And focusing on your dreams is a distraction from what's really important.
