Brain potentials before and after rapid eye movements: an electrophysiological approach to dreaming in REM sleep

Abstract

Study objective: This study examined hypotheses regarding dreaming in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep by comparing brain potentials related to rapid eye movements in REM sleep with those in wakefulness.

Design: Within participants.

Setting: Data were collected in a sleep laboratory.

Participants: Fifteen healthy university students who reported having dreams frequently.

Measurements and results: Rapid eye movements in REM sleep were recorded during natural nocturnal sleep. Saccades in wakefulness were recorded during a self-paced visual search task. The presaccadic negativity before and the lambda response after eye movements were examined. It was assumed that the presaccadic negativity reflects voluntary readiness activity before eye movements, and the lambda response reflects visual information processing after saccades in wakefulness. Brain potentials were averaged, time-locked to the onset and offset of eye movements for the presaccadic negativity and the lambda response, respectively. In wakefulness, the presaccadic negativity occurred at the centroparietal site. However, no presaccadic negativity was found during REM sleep. Lambda-like responses (P1r, P2r) were observed in REM sleep over the parietooccipital site, as were the lambda responses (P1, P2) in wakefulness.

Conclusions: The finding that rapid eye movements are initiated without preparation but elicit some neural activity in the cortical visual area suggests that rapid eye movements may trigger dream images.