Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Schizophrenia?

"What Your Sleep Personality Says About Your Waking Life" on MSN. Freud called dreams the “royal road” to the unconscious. While modern research on sleep and dreaming makes smaller claims, it turns out that you can learn more than you’d expect about both health and personality by looking at various aspects of your sleep and dreaming life. Below are the two that most fit me:
The Peaceful Sleeper
If you sleep like a log, you probably have an attitude of gratitude. A study of 161 people published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research found that those who focus on what they have—not what they lack—fall asleep faster and sleep more soundly. Grateful people are also less tired and more functional during the day.
Why would being grateful affect your sleep? The researchers found that this was related to the thoughts people had as they drifted off. Being thankful led to faster, deeper sleep.“People who are feeling more grateful are less tense and anxious, because the two are incompatible,” says Vincent. “A mental state like that at bedtime would be helpful for your sleep.”
The Dreaming Sleeper
Can you vividly recall your dreams each morning? Your sleep style indicates that you are likely highly creative in your waking life."People with an intensely high level of dream recall have something called 'thin borders,'" says James Pagel, MD, Director of the Sleepworks Laboratory in Colorado Springs, Colorado. "That means that for them, everything is in shades of grey, there's not whole lot of black or white. They’re not purely Democrats or Republicans; they are not quite asleep or awake and they define much of their lives in that way."Such people tend to be odd and quirky—and although most are perfectly normal, they are at higher risk than others for schizophrenia.
Haha, I hope not to the schiz part. People, watch out! What type of sleeper are you?

1 comments:

Tom and Annie said...

K, totally interesting. I am going to check this out, but what you thought you were, that's me! I fall asleep quickly and I'm always telling Tom all about my weird dreams!