[Skip to Navigation]
Article
February 1960

Studies in Psychophysiology of Dreams: II. An Electromyographic Study of Dreaming

Author Affiliations

Chicago
From the Department of Psychiatry, University of Chicago, 950 E. 59th St.

AMA Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1960;2(2):231-241. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1960.03590080107014
Abstract

The work of Kleitman and his students1-4 has demonstrated conclusively that a low-voltage, fast-activity electroencephalographic (EEG) pattern during sleep is typically associated with dreaming. By continuous monitoring of brain waves during sleep, it is now possible to localize the dream as it occurs. The discovery of the association of a specific EEG pattern with dreaming was antedated by the observation that rapid, conjugate eye movements during sleep are associated with visual dreams.1-3,5 Not all dreams are visual, however, and dreams without rapid eye movements (REM’s) have been observed to be nonvisual in nature. Indeed, the amount of reported physical activity by the dreamer has been found by Dement and Wolpert5 to be related to the amount of eye movement observed electrically, the EEG pattern being constant regardless of the amount of activity in the dream. In addition, the spatial direction of the

Add or change institution
×