2011考研阅读冲刺课程讲义.docVIP

　Of all the components 0fa good nights sleep, dreams seem to be least within our control. In dreams, a window opens into a world where logic is suspended and dead people speak. A century ago, Freud formulated his revolutionary theory that dreams were the disguised shadows of our unconscious desires and fears; by the late 1970s, neurologists had switched to thinking of them as just mental noise —the random byproducts of the neural-repair work that goes on during sleep. Now researchers suspect that dreams are part of the minds emotional thermostat, regulating moods while the brain is off-line. And one leading authority says that these intensely powerful mental events can be not only harnessed but actually brought under conscious control, to help us sleep and feel better. Its your dream, says Rosalind Cartwright, chair of psychology at Chicagos Medical Center. If you dont like it, change it. 　　Evidence from brain imaging supports this view. The brain is as active during REM (rapid eye movement)sleep—when most vivid dreams occur—as it is when fully awake, says Dr. Eric Nofzinger at the University of Pittsburgh. But not all parts of the brain are equally involved, the limbic system (the emotional brain ) is especially active, while the prefrontal cortex (the center of intellect and reasoning) is relatively quiet. We wake up from dreams happy or depressed, and those feelings can stay with us all day, says Stanford sleep researcher Dr. William Dement. 　　The link between dreams and emotions shows up among the patients in Cartwrights clinic. Most people seem to have more bad dreams early in the night, progressing toward happier ones before awakening, suggesting that they are working through negative feelings, generated during the day. Because our conscious mind is occupied with daily life we dont always think about the emotional significance of the days events—until, it appears, we begin to dream. 　　And this process need not be left to the unconscious. Cartwright belie