{"title":"On the Illusion of Flying in Dreams: The Mechanism of its Occurrence","authors":"G. R. Ivanitskii","doi":"10.1134/S0006350923050111","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>It is shown that there is no need to resort to exoteric hypotheses to explain flight in a dream. From the standpoint of biophysics, the phenomenon of “flying in a dream” is based on the already studied adaptive mechanisms and circadian rhythms of the human body. During sleep, the brain’s excitation thresholds change; this makes it easier in some brain areas to excite weak signals. One of the mechanisms of such excitation occurs when a person changes his posture during sleep, which is perceived by the brain in the rapid eye movement sleep phase as a decrease in body weight. This, under certain conditions, can contribute to the appearance in the brain of the illusion of flight.</p>","PeriodicalId":493,"journal":{"name":"Biophysics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.0330,"publicationDate":"2024-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Biophysics","FirstCategoryId":"4","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S0006350923050111","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
It is shown that there is no need to resort to exoteric hypotheses to explain flight in a dream. From the standpoint of biophysics, the phenomenon of “flying in a dream” is based on the already studied adaptive mechanisms and circadian rhythms of the human body. During sleep, the brain’s excitation thresholds change; this makes it easier in some brain areas to excite weak signals. One of the mechanisms of such excitation occurs when a person changes his posture during sleep, which is perceived by the brain in the rapid eye movement sleep phase as a decrease in body weight. This, under certain conditions, can contribute to the appearance in the brain of the illusion of flight.
BiophysicsBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology-Biophysics
CiteScore
1.20
自引率
0.00%
发文量
67
期刊介绍:
Biophysics is a multidisciplinary international peer reviewed journal that covers a wide scope of problems related to the main physical mechanisms of processes taking place at different organization levels in biosystems. It includes structure and dynamics of macromolecules, cells and tissues; the influence of environment; energy transformation and transfer; thermodynamics; biological motility; population dynamics and cell differentiation modeling; biomechanics and tissue rheology; nonlinear phenomena, mathematical and cybernetics modeling of complex systems; and computational biology. The journal publishes short communications devoted and review articles.