Abstract
REM is similar to wakefulness in a variety of ways, and resembles exploratory behaviours involving stimulation, curiosity and aspects of emotions, quite possibly including mental mapping of places having ‘emotional connotations’. These are characteristics quite different to those of non-REM. REM particularly seems to regulate waking emotional tone, especially by dampening fear responses. In being particularly abundant at the end of sleep, REM appears to be preparing us for forthcoming wakefulness, rather than acting as a recovery process from prior wakefulness, as seems to be the case with SWS. REM may well be linked to feeding behaviours, given their common brain mechanisms, with REM seeming to act as an appetite suppressant, especially during the latter part of our nocturnal sleep, which typically develops into a fast.
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Horne, J. (2016). REM Sleep: Food for Thought?. In: Sleeplessness. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30572-1_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30572-1_13
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