STUDY - Experts from the University of California at Berkeley have conducted an experiment on a sample of 35 healthy volunteers : after showing them twice 150 images with high emotional impact of a distance interval of 12 hours (during the which half the sample had rested and half not) were analyzed with a scanning their brain activity. And 'the result that those who had reviewed the images after a period of sleep reacted less traumatic to the second view snapshots. In essence, the dreams of REM sleep (the one that processes related memory and unconscious), cleared the memory by painful memories, dispose of the chemicals related to stress, such as norepinephrine, and offers a spontaneous sort of therapy.
The amygdala - Through the scanner scientists have been observed in participants who had dreamed of a test and the other a significant reduction of the reactivity of the amygdala, the brain slice preparation of the deputy emotions. This has allowed the prefrontal cortex, responsible for the management of rationality, to return to lead the responses of volunteers, thus allowing them to scale the experience. In the case of the most traumatic memory but sometimes dreams of therapy does not work, because the memories are too strong and violent activities during the dream is relived the whole experience.
FREUD AND DREAMS - The beneficial effect of sleep need, and has long been known and in particular dream experience functions as a sort of key to the development of treatment and disposal of trauma memories, thanks to its theatrical representation of the value of reality. The interesting aspect of the research is, however, the dramatic difference between the volunteers subjected to the vision of the images after the break and those who have seen the snapshots in the morning and evening, without interposed between the two visions sleep and dreams. As stated by Associate Professor Matthew Walker intuition could be very useful in the treatment of mental illness and post-traumatic disorders. "In deep sleep the memories are reactivated - but says Els van der Helm (who led the study) - and are revived in new ways, put in perspective, integrated, but the precondition is the removal of chemicals of which heralds the stress, such as norepinephrine . A good sleep helps to see things from another perspective: the bad memories and it is better to evaporate. And 'exactly what has happened to the volunteers at Berkeley. It 'like seeing the reality for a second time, from a viewpoint more rational and less emotional.
