Posted by zeugma on April 24, 2006, at 4:22:35
In reply to Dream. I want to dream., posted by River1924 on April 24, 2006, at 0:57:41
i have the opposite problem: far too much dreaming.
Antidepressants, with few exceptions, limit dreaming. SSRI's block dreaming at first, but many complain of continuous dreaming when on them for long periods of time.
All stimulants, with the exceptions of Provigil and the recently discontinued Cylert, will limit dreaming. Benzodiazepines don't affect dreaming as much.
An excellent book on sleep is "The Promise of Sleep" by the discoverer of REM, William Dement. He covers all the major sleep disorders, apnea, narcolepsy, as well as problems caused by insufficient sleep. He touches on mood disorders too, though the focus is more on sleep in general.
"The Dream Drugstore" by J.A. Hobson is the only book I know exclusively devoted to psychotropics and dreaming. The link between dreaming, sleep and mood disorders is explored in some detail, although the book is somewhat outdated (as is Dement's book) by omitting recent discoveries in sleep, most notably the discovery of the orexin/hypocretin system.
"Dreaming" by Hobson is written in question-and-answer format and is a great book to read in Barnes and Noble or the like. Hobson may have updated the book recently.
Drugs that increase dreaming are anti-Alzheimer's meds like Aricept, though these have the reputation of causing depression.Prazosin, an alpha-1 antagonist, will increase dreaming in narcoleptics and some depressives, while purportedly being useful for combat-induced PTSD. In many ways, Alzheimer's and depression have opposite presentations. A very interesting recent theory on the function of dreaming takes the view that dreaming is essential to the construction of selfhood- Alzheimer's patients literally forget who they are, and depressives remember all too this all too well- the theory at least is intriguing-
Naturwissenschaften. 2005 May;92(5):203-20.
Mammalian sleep.Staunton H.
Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin 2, Ireland. hugh@iol.ie
This review examines the biological background to the development of ideas on rapid eye movement sleep (REM sleep), so-called paradoxical sleep (PS), and its relation to dreaming. Aspects of the phenomenon which are discussed include physiological changes and their anatomical location, the effects of total and selective sleep deprivation in the human and animal, and REM sleep behavior disorder, the latter with its clinical manifestations in the human. Although dreaming also occurs in other sleep phases (non-REM or NREM sleep), in the human, there is a contingent relation between REM sleep and dreaming. Thus, REM is taken as a marker for dreaming and as REM is distributed ubiquitously throughout the mammalian class, it is suggested that other mammals also dream. It is suggested that the overall function of REM sleep/dreaming is more important than the content of the individual dream; its function is to place the dreamer protagonist/observer on the topographical world. This has importance for the developing infant who needs to develop a sense of self and separateness from the world which it requires to navigate and from which it is separated for long periods in sleep. Dreaming may also serve to maintain a sense of 'I'ness or "self" in the adult, in whom a fragility of this faculty is revealed in neurological disorders.>>
-z
poster:zeugma
thread:636380
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060423/msgs/636394.html