Dreams… in a coma?

14Oct05

I was presented with this question today in English class; “Can a human suspended in a vegtated state (aka coma) experience REM sleep (aka dreams).” My first response was yes. Of course, all your brain functions are still working but you just don’t have control over your prepherial senors or are able to control your muscular system.

Upon furthur investigation, however, I found that you cannot experience dreams. Why? Well I’m glad you asked. The reason is because your brain switches from experiencing gamma, beta, alpha, and theta brain waves on a normal basis to experiencing delta waves. Hmmm… what is all this talk of gamma and beta and delta waves you say. Well you gamma, beta, alpha and theta waves are all the waves that deal with the outside world or your physical senses. When you go into a coma, your brain suspends those waves and switches to the delta waves. These waves are not capable of creating the “dreams” that we experience in a regular sleep cycle.

That’s a basic summary. For a more detailed summary check here. If you are still interesting, search the amazing google… very interesting subject.

What do you think?

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