Dement & Kleitman

Core Study 2
Group Members
Nia Boodram
Gareth Da’Silva
Romichelle Brumell
Sumayah Richardson
Chris Mahase
Dhanram Dyal
Table of contents
01 Aims 02 Background

03 Research Methods
04 Procedure

04 Results 05 Generalisation and

Conclusion

06 Questions
01
Aims
 Aims
The Main aim of the Study was to find out more about dreaming.
More specifically these aims were:

Is there a positive correlation between subjective estimates of dream duration and the length of the
REM period before waking?

Does dream recall differ between eye movement (REM and quiescent (nREM) stages of sleep?

Are eye movement patterns related to dream content?

 02
Background
 Background
•Sleeping and Dreaming are generally tedious to study as participants are not responsive. Psychological measures are
typically needed to find out about sleep and dream even though participants have the tendency to give a description of
their dream when they're awake.

Aserinsky and Kleitman (1955) were the first to utilize psychological measures of sleep to generally explore the
relationship of sleeping and dreaming. They used an electroencephalograph EEG (a machine that essentially detect the
activities of nerve muscles) to investigate sleeping and dreaming. During the such investigation, they discovered that
humans have several sleep stages during the night, which alternate from REM (rapid eye movement) to NREM (non-
rapid eye movement). They reported that those participants who had woken up during the REM sleep stage reported more
vivid, visual dreams. However, this was the case for both normal as well as Schizophrenic participants.
 Amount of Participants

7 Men 2 Women
 03
Research Methods
 Research Methods
● This Study was an experiment conducted in a laboratory, meaning it
was a highly controlled environment.

● It used a repeated measure design, meaning the same participants

were used in each condition of the experiment.

● The Sample included 7 male and 2 female adults, 5 of whom were studied
in detail; with the remaining four being used to confirm the results of the 5
 Research Methods

● The Independent variable was whether the participant was woken up

from REM or nREM sleep

● The Dependent variable was whether they recalled a dream or not

 04

Procedure
 Procedure
On each day of the study, Participant's diet was normal, excluding caffeine
and alcohol.

They arrived at the laboratory just before their usual bedtime, and went to
sleep in a dark quiet
electrodes were attached beside the eyes and on the scalp.

Participants were woken up (by a doorbell) at various times during the night
and asked to describe their dreams (if they were having one.
Procedure 1 They were not told their EEg pattern or if the were in REM or REM to avoid
demand characteristics
 Procedure
Participants were woken up using the following method:

● Use of Random number tables

● Groups of three in REM then three REM

● Telling the participant that they would only be woken in REM but
actually woken up in a random state
● In no specific order, just at the experimenter's whim
Procedure 2
 Procedure
● Participants were then asked to explain if they were having a dream, if so,
they were asked to describe it into a recorder. There was no other
communication between them and the experimenter
● Participants were woken after either 5 or 15 minutes of REM sleep, the
participant guessed how long they had been dreaming for and the number of
words in the dream narrative were counted
● The Direction of eye movements were detected using Eeg electrodes.

Participants were woken after a single eye movement had lasted more than a minute;
usually being mainly vertical, horizontal, both or little or no movement'
Procedure 3
 04

Results
 Results
The results obtained some general findings can be
noted, such as all participants dreamt every night,
as well as those relating to their three questions,
they found that:
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QUESTIONS?

Uninterrupted dream stages lasted 3 - 50

minutes (mean approx. 20 minutes), were
typically longer later in the night and
showed intermittent bursts of around 2 - 100
REMs.
•
 Results
The cycle length varied between participants but
was consistent within individuals, eg 70 for one,
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104 for another.
QUESTIONS?

When woken in nREM participants

returned to nREM, but when woken in
REM they typically didn’t dream again
until the next REM phase (except
sometimes in the final REM phase).
 Results
Participants frequently described dreams when woken
in REM but rarely did from nREM sleep (although
there were some individual differences) and this
differences was marked at the end of the nREM period
(within 8 minutes of cessation of REM – only 6
dreams recalled in 132 awakenings). In nREM
awakenings, participants tended to describe feelings
but not specific dream content.
 Results
Accuracy of estimation of 5 or 15 minutes’ of REM
was very high (88% and 78% respectively). REM
duration and number of words in the narrative were
significantly positively correlated.

Eye movement patterns were related to dream content, eg

horizontal movements in a dream about throwing
tomatoes, vertical ones in a dream about ladders and few
movements in dreams about staring fixedly at something.
 Strength

High level of control - the researchers controlled many

extraneous variables such as not drinking alcohol or
caffeine before the experiment, waking up participants
with the same doorbell sound and having participants in
the same environment. This makes the results valid and
reliable.
 Weakness

High level of control - the researchers controlled many

extraneous variables such as not drinking alcohol or
caffeine before the experiment, waking up participants
with the same doorbell sound and having participants in
the same environment. This makes the results valid and
reliable.
 05
Generalization and
Conclusion
 Generalisation

Dement and Kleitman (1957) was to find objective methods such as specifically investigating if
dream recall differs between REM or NREM stages of sleep that occur in 5 stages: wake, N1,
N2, N3 and REM. These stages are recorded using an EEG or electroencephalograph furthermore
producing a chart showing how brain waves vork.
 Closure

Dement and Kleitman's study further concluded that dreaming is reported

from Rem but not nRem
 Thanks!
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