William Dement and nathaniel Kleitman, 1957

THE RELATION OF EYE MOVEMENTS DURING

SEEP TO DREAM ACTIVITY: AN OBJECTIVE
METHOD FOR STUDYING DREAM
BACK GROUND AND CONTEXT
 The study of dream activity and its relation to physiological
variables during sleep necessitates a reliable method of
determining with precision when dreaming occurs
 There have been studies to substantiate relationships between
eye movements during sleep and dream recall.
 Subjective reports of dream contents need to be objectively
related with some physiological phenomena which in turn can be
measured by physical techniques
 Three approaches were used in the present study. Dream recall
during rapid eye movement or quiescent periods was elicited
without direct contact between E and S, The subjective estimate
of duration of dreams was compared with the length of eye
movement periods before awakening, and pattern of the eye
movements were related to the dream content to see if they
represented a specific expression of the visual experience of
dreaming or merely a random motor discharge of a more active
central nervous system
KEY WORDS
 Electroencephalogram (EEG)- A method of recording the electrical activity in
the brain.
 Electromyogram (EMG) is a method of recording electrical activity in the
muscle
 Electrooculaogram (EOG) is a method of recording electrical activity in the eyes
 Stages of sleep- Awake state, NREM stage (Asleep: stages one and two, Asleep:
stages three and four) and REM sleep
 Waves- Beta wave (In an awake states the pattern of the waves); Alpha wave
(brain waves more slower and more regular and have a greater amplitude –
height of the wave); Theta Waves (Brain waves slow down further, greater wave
frequency-distance from the crest of one wave to the next, and the amplitude
also is greater); and delta waves (waves are slowest and have highest
amplitude).
 Sleep Process- from awake to stages 1 &2 -3 &4-REM, reversing back through
4,3,2 and instead of 1 again REM sleep. This cycle repeats 3 to 4 times with
90 minutes per cycle. The length of REM episodes increases and length of
delta sleep decreases in each cycle.
AIM AND HYPOTHESIS
 To study the relationship between sleep and
dreaming using objective method
 There is a significant relationship between REM/NREM
sleep and dreaming, such that REM sleep is
associated with dreaming and NREM sleep is not
 There is a significant positive correlation between the
subjective estimate of the duration of dreams and the
length of eye movement period prior to awakening
 There is a significant association between the pattern
of eye movement and the content of the dream, such
that the former actually reflects the visual experience
of the dream
METHODS
 Design- Lab experimentation-Observation Method, Natural
Experiment
 Target Variables- REM, NREM, patterns of eye movements;
Dream recall and dream content
 Sample- 7 adult males and 2 adult females – 5 of which were
intensively studied and 4 of which were used to confirm
results; Sampling technique-opportunity
 Experimental Controls-Alcohol or caffeine avoided, location of
the study and sleeping time. Participants were not told
whether they had just been having REM activity whey they
were awoken. Subjects spoke into the recording device about
the dreams in order to avoid the experimenter’s effects. Use
of different patterns of awakenings as a counterbalance in
the distribution
PROCEDURE
 Electrodes were attached around the participant’s eyes to measure activity and hence
eye movement and attached to the participants scalp to record brain waves.
 The participant then went to sleep in a quiet darkened room
 At various times during the night the participants were awakened by a bell placed by
their bed. The awakenings were done either during an REM period or at varying time
periods after REM activity had stopped.
 The investigators used different patterns for awakening the five most intensively studied
participants to avoid any unintentional pattern. For example, with two participants they
used a table of random numbers, one participants was awoken during three REM
periods and then three NREM periods, and one was told he would only be awoken
during REM sleep but infact was awoken randomly during REM and NREM sleep.
 The participants was instructed to speak into a recording machine near their bed
(stating whether they had been dreaming), describing if they could the content of the
dream, and saying if they had been dreaming, whether they were dreaming for 5 or 15
mts.
 An investigator was listening outside the room and occasionally entered the room to
further question the participant on some particular point of the dream.
 The participants usually fell back to sleep within five minutes.
 The nine subjects were studied over a total of 61 nights, with a total of 351 awakenings
which averaged out at 5.7 awakening per night
RESULTS – OCCURRENCE OF REM ACTIVITY
 All participants had REM every night.
 REM sleep was characterized by a low voltage, relatively fast EEG pattern. In
between the REM periods, EEG patterns indicating deeper sleep were either
predominantly high voltage, slow activity or frequent, well define sleep spindles
with a low voltage background.
 No REMs were observed during initial onset of sleep
 REM periods lasted between 3 and 50 minutes with a mean of about 20
minutes. The REM period tended to get longer the later in the night it occurred.
The eyes were not constantly in motion during REM activity, instead there were
bursts of between 2 and 100 movements
 REM periods occurred at fairly regular intervals. The frequency was
characteristic for every individual. WD averaged one REM period every 70
minutes, for KC it was once every 104 minutes. The average was an REM
episode every 92 minutes
 Despite the disturbance of being regularly awakened the REM periods were as
frequent as those recorded in a previous study of uninterrupted sleep.
 If a participant was awakened during an REM period during the final hours of
sleep, when such periods tended to be quite long, they often went back into
REM sleep as if the heightened brain activity had not run its course
RESULTS – HYPOTHESIS 1- EYE MOVEMENT PERIODS
AND DREAM RECALL
•For all participants there was high incidence of recall
of dream during REM periods and a low incidence of
recall during NREM periods regardless of the
patterns used to determine awakenings.
•However there were times when REM activity was
not associated with a coherent dream and times
when NREM sleep did produce a coherent dream
recall.
•There were individual differences. Some participants
were better able to recall their dreams
•If participants were awoken more than eight minutes
after the end of REM period, very few dreams were
recalled (6 dreams of 132 awakenings) whereas if
participants were awoken within eight minutes of an
REM period the proportion rose ( 5 dreams in 17
awakenings)
•When participants were awoken during deep NREM
sleep they sometimes were rather bewildered and
reported that they must have been dreaming but
could not remember the dream. They recalled a
mood, such as anxiety or pleasantness, but no
specific content.
•Most of the instances when dreams could not be
recalled during REM sleep occurred during the early
part of the night (only 9 of the 39 cases of no dreams
in REM sleep were reported in the last four hours of
 RESULTS – HYPOTHESIS 2- LENGTH OF REM PERIODS AND
SUBJECTIVE DREAM DURATION

 The estimates of duration

of dreams were fairly
accurate.

 There was a significant

correlation between the
minutes of REMs and lengths
of dream narratives (number
of words used)
RESULTS – HYPOTHESIS 3- EYE MOVEMENT PATTERNS AND VISUAL
IMAGERY OF THE DREAM

Type of eye movement Content of dreams reported by

Mainly vertical (three such dreams
reported)
Mainly Horizontal (one dream reported)
Both vertical and horizontal (10 dreams)
Very little or no movement 21 dreams
participants
Standing at the bottom of cliff and looking
at climbers at different levels.
Climbing ladders and looking up and
down.
Shooting at a basketball net and looking
down to pick up the next ball
Two people throwing tomatoes at each
other
Looking at things close to them, e.g.
talking to a group of people, fighting with
someone
Watching something in the distance or just
staring fixedly at some object

 The recall of the dreams showed some relationship to the

type of eye movements.
RESULTS- EFFECTS OF PRACTICE

 Participants did not

recall more dreams
as they got more
practiced
CONCLUSION

 A high incidence of dream recall was obtained

from participants when woken during REM
periods, and only a very low incidence when
woken at other times
 When a series of awakenings was conducted
either 5 or 15 minutes after the REMs
(dreaming) had begun, participants judged the
correct dream duration fairly accurate
 The pattern of REMs was related to the visual
imagery of the dream
EVALUATION

 Usefulness
 Application

 Ecological Validity

 Reliability and validity

 Representative sample

 Quantitative Vs Qualitative data

EVALUATION
 Usefulness- when Dement & Kleitman carried out this study, they were testing for the
first time the idea that the observed physical response of rapid eye movement
during sleep was connected to the almost mystical state of dreaming. The
physiology of sleep was just beginning to be unravelled and all of a sudden the world
of dreams seemed to be coming into the domain of science.
 Application- Today vast amount of sleep research is being carried out to help people
with sleep disorders or who work shifts. Also, some work done on the disruptive
potential of sleep deprivation and its connection to learning and memory. On the
other hand, sleep deprivation is a tactic used on prisoners (in crime, in war and
political) to make them more cooperative.
 Validity- Use of observation as a method add up to the validity. The use of
experimental controls in the procedures have contributed to reducing effect of
extraneous factors. In order to confirm the meaningfulness of eye movement pattern
and dream content, 20 naive participants and 5 of the experimental participants
were asked to observe distant and close-up activity while awake. These
measurements were in all cases comparable to those occurring during dreaming.
However use of self report measures to dream recall and dream contents may
question the validity of the measure.
EVALUATION
 Reliability- Subsequent studies have found that there are large differences
between individuals in the reports of dreaming during REM. Also they were
inconsistent with the findings of Dement and Kleitman’s present study that
there is a relationship between eye movements and what the person is
dreaming about.
 Representative sample-A further problem with the study was the sample size.
The sample size was small and only included 2 females so we could argue
that the results were biased towards the dream pattern of men rather than
women. This may limit the generalizability of the study.
 Ecological Validity- An obvious weakness of the study is its lack of ecological
validity. The situation in which the participants had to sleep was unusual
and could have affected their sleep patterns. Also the nature of the method
of waking participants may have affected their ability to recall their dream.
 Quantitative Vs Qualitative data- The study collected both quantitative (self
report-dream recall, dream duration estimates) and observation (EEG
patterns); qualitative (dream contents). This contributes to the reliability and
validity of the study. It has also showed us that the relationship between
dream and sleep can be studies objectively