The thought of your eyes moving rapidly in your head isn’t the most flattering thought, yet it’s something that happens about four - to- five times every night during our sleep cycle. Rapid eye movement, or REM, has many stages and though seeming completely harmless, in actuality can cause injury to people and their loved ones. REM is also capable to cause future health concerns, yet the capability to prevent these health risk isn’t surprising. Though many aren’t surprised about the simple “treatment” for a peaceful REM during their sleep cycle, many aren’t fully aware of what REM really is.
What Is REM? Rapid eye movement is one of three stages of “sleep”, …show more content…
This is known as REM Behavior Disorder (RBD).
REM Behavior Disorder (RBD) REM Behavior Disorder is when an individual's muscles are able to move during “sleep”, and react based on the dream and individual is having. The individual is also able to engage in activities associated with waking, thus being capable to harm not only himself, but their spouse or partner in bed with them. Actions that are able to take place are sleep talking shouting, screaming, hitting, punching,or even flying out of bed.
The History of RBD In 1985, Drs. Mark Mahowald M.D and Carlos Schenck M.D of the University of Minnesota, were able to outline several cases of RBD such as: A 77 year old minister would sleep with violent behavior, and would injure his wife. A 60 year old surgeon would jump out of bed after being attacked by “ criminals, terrorist, and monsters” in his dream. (National Sleep Foundation 1)
Causes and Diagnosis of RBD To find the cause of REB, scientist did research on cats, then to discover lesions in the brain stem that involves the inhibition of locomotor activity. When conducting these test, the sleeping cats would hiss, arch their, stretch