Somnambulism - Sleep Walking
One of the interesting sleep disorder is sleep walking. The medical, or more scientific, term for sleep walking is somnambulism. The characteristic symptoms are walking or exhibiting other activities while seemingly still asleep. (1) I became interested in researching this topic, because I sleep walk. I sleep walk only when I am under stress, which is not often. However, it is one of my primary concerns because I exhibit an extremely violent behavior. I began my research by looking for the relationship between somnambulism and the brain. I found that they are related, but the details are still under research. Then, I looked for the cause, however, since the detailed mechanism of the brain during sleep walking is not defined, a specific cause and effect was also not clearly defined. Thus, this paper will include the information that the researchers have obtained so far, the type of experiments that have been done, and the problems in obtaining more information about somnambulism.
The term somnambulism comes from the Latin words for sleep (somnus) and walking (ambulus). A typical sleepwalking episode is rather short. Sleepwalkers may simply appear awake, or exhibit complicated activity such as driving a car, while asleep. (2)
The researchers have been using a device called the Electroencephalogram (EEG) to understand sleep and sleep disorders. This device measures the electromagnetic waves that are emitted from the brain at various locations around the head. These waves are amplified and fed to a plotter, which plots the amplitude of the waves over time. This device identified four stages of sleep.(3)
The first sleep state, before the four stages, is pre-sleep. The EEG reading of an active and awake person shows mainly beta waves, which are low-amplitude, high frequency waves. Beta waves are associated with conscious thought. As a person begins to fall asleep, the EEG reading becomes punctuated with alpha waves, which are regular waves of higher amplitude. Alpha waves are associated with a relaxed mind. The first stage of sleep shows similar beta waves as the first sleep state, except at a lower frequency. As time progresses within stage 1, there is a gradual lowering of frequency and simultaneous increase of amplitude. The second stage of sleep show two characteristic waves. K-complexes consist of a single large amplitude wave, and Sleep spindles are 1-2 second bursts of very high frequency irregular waves. The third stage shows infrequent intrusion of delta waves, which have high amplitude and a low frequency.
The more unpleasant aspects of Achilles' character are brought home to us shortly after we first encounter him in The Iliad, when he quarrels with Agamemnon over the possession of a concubine. Before the assembled Greek leaders, Achilles complains that he never gets his fair share of the prizes, that the Achaians do not give him sufficient honor, and that he is weary of fighting the Trojans, "since to me they have done nothing" (Lattimore, 1967:63). When Agamemnon decides to teach him a lesson and take his concubine Briseis from him, Achilles has a fit of temper and warns all the Greeks that they will be sorry they did not cater to his whims: "And then y...
Peterson, Linda H., John C. Brereton, Joseph Bizup, Anne E. Fernald, and Melissa A. Goldthwaite. The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Nonfiction. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2012. 195-99. Print.
Kelts, Roland. Japanamerica : how Japanese pop culture has invaded the U.S. . New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Print.
Considering the context of its creation, the “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” by Martin Luther King Jr. is remarkably powerful that sets many citizens to be involved for social justice. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was the first African American leader for the Civil Rights Movements. Because of his role as an activist and a humanitarian leader, he was best known for his role in civil engagements using nonviolent civil disobedience. The letter was a response to Birmingham clergy that segregation can happen on streets and instead of doing it the violent way, justices could be brought in a non-violent way to break unjust laws. Moving on, King Jr’s readings have a relationship with “From Non-Violent Resistance,” by Mohandas K. Gandhi. He is
The ideology of nonviolence has come to play a major role in political struggles in the United States of America and, indeed, in nations around the world. Almost every organization seeking radical change in the USA has been targeted by organizers for the nonviolence movement. Organizations like Earth First!, which originally did not subscribe to the ideology of nonviolence, have since then adopted that ideology or at least its set of rules for protest and civil disobedience. Yet nonviolence activists have put little energy into bringing their creed to establishment, reactionary, or openly violent organizations.
We live our entire life in two states, sleep and awake1. These two states are characterized by two distinct behaviors. For instance, the brain demonstrates a well-defined activity during non-REM sleep (nREM) that is different when we are awake. In the study of sleep by Huber et. al., the authors stated that sleep is in fact a global state2. It is unclear whether this statement means that sleep is a state of global behavioural inactivity or the state of the global nervous system. The notion that sleep is a global state of the nervous system served as basis for sleep researchers to search for a sleep switch. The discovery of the sleep switch, in return, provided evidence and enhanced the notion that sleep is a global state of the nervous system. The switch hypothesis developed from the fact that sleep can be initiated without fatigue and it is reversible1. It was hypothesized that there is something in the brain that has the ability to control the whole brain and initiate sleep. Studies have found a good candidate that demonstrated this ability3. They found a group of neurons in the Ventrolateral Preoptic (VLPO) nucleus. It was a good candidate because it was active during sleep, has neuronal output that can influence the wakefulness pathway, and lesion in the area followed reduce sleep3. The idea that there is something that can control the whole brain and result sleep state supports the idea that sleep is a global state of the nervous system.
In normal sleeping patterns a person usually passes through five phases of sleep, the fifth being REM. The sleeping human passes cyclically through these five phases throughout a night's rest. These phases can be defined in electrical activity of the brain; much like the activity of the heart is often defined. The technique of measuring the electrical activity of the brain is call Electro-encephalogram, or EEG. When the electrical events of a person's brain are graphed on a electrical magnitude versus time axis the graph of a person who is in different stages of being asleep or awake appear to have different levels of electrical activity occurring in the brain. (See (14))
THESIS STATEMENT: Narcolepsy is a sleep disorder that has a specific medical definition, life-changing symptoms, and there are ways in how people treat it.
This paper will explore what it is about anime that makes it so appealing to even a Western audience, creating an international fan base. Although manga can be traced to American origins, the comics that the Americans brought over have been intensely modified to create essentially a new form of media. Manga and anime have become a significant component of Japanese culture, and often times they integrate Japanese culture and society. Yet, regardless of its Japanese origin, anime is still viewed on the other side of the planet. The question then becomes what is it that makes it so appealing to a foreign audience? This paper will rely heavily on Susan Napier’s book, From Impressionism to Anime: Japan as Fantasy and Fan Cult in the Mind of the
I believe that most of these cases had nothing to do with sleep walking because just like in Jules Lowe case, being drunk can cause memory loss. During Kenneth Park’s case, it was brought up that it’s quite strange and rare for someone to drive 14 miles and make it through all the stop lights and curves. I believe people use the sleepwalking defense when all else fails and they have no other way to when that case. While in sleep you can talk, walk, eat, and have sex in your sleep but I don’t believe committing a murder is one of
There are five stages of sleep. The first stage is when one prepares to drift off. During this stage, one experiences Alpha and Theta waves. This stage generally lasts five to ten minutes. The second stage lasts about twenty minutes. The brain begins to produce short periods of rhythmic brain waves known as Sleep Spindles. Body temperature begins to drop and the heart rates slows down. During stage three, slow waves
Sleeping is something that is an essential part of human nature and is a must in order for one to be a functional human being. Sleep is an idea that is accompanied by many wives’ tales, including the idea that one needs seven to eight hours of sleep each night and alcohol helps one fall asleep and sleep more soundly. One myth about sleep is that during sleep, one is in a state of nothingness. In truth, however, it has been discovered that during sleep the brain is active, variations in heartbeat and breathing occur, and the eyes and ears are active throughout the time of sleep. These activities during a person’s sleep are important because they help that person be more aware, awake, and alert during sleep.
Ohayon, M.M., Caulet, M., Priest, R.G. (1997) Violent Behavior During Sleep New Jersey: J Clin Psychiatry
the sleeper will gradually descend deeper into sleep, becoming more and more detached from the outside world and progressively more difficult to awaken. Stage three is the beginning of deep sleep, occurring about thirty to forty five minutes after you first fall asleep. The deepest sleep occurs in Stage four. Stage three and four has the biggest and slowest brain wave. REM sleep, a mentally active period during which dreaming occurs, provided a biological explanation for this phenomenon. Scientists found that brain activity during REM sleep begins in the pons, a structure in the brainstem, and neighboring midbrain regions. The pons sends signals to the thalamus and to the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for most thought processes. There are several myths about sleep. For one, how much sleep a person should get? According to our text book people should sleep for at least eight hours to maintain sound mental and physical health. But every one doesn’t get the chance to sleep for that amount of time. There is no normal amount of time you should sleep. Everyone is not the same. For one I might sleep for five hours and feel refreshed enough to work another shift. Other hand my cousin might need more then eight hours of sleep to feel refreshed.
Technological advancements such as the electroencephalograph (EEG), that can measure activity of the sleeping brain, have facilitated various theories to explain the necessity of and the purpose of sleep. Sleep studies measure brain waves (EEG), eye movements (EOG), and muscle skeletal activity (EMG) using a polysomnography.