According to my newsreader, gwhelan at access.net.au posted...
// It's not that we don't know why we sleep, it's just that it is difficult to
// prove. [....]
//
// The rapid eye movement (REM) sleep appears to have very little to do with
// consolidation of experience and more to do with establishing and repairing
// connections in the brain. A foetus at 26 weeks gestation spends 100% of its
// time in REM sleep, having had almost no 'experiences' to deal with and no
// psychological dilemmas which Freud proposed as the function of dreaming.
Freud's proposal being what it may, I can imagine that the gradual
emergence of basic awareness and conciousness, coming as it apparently
does from complete nothingness and driven by sensations of movement
and sound, might seem to the foetus to be *quite* the experience.
IIRC, anyone in REM sleep is very responsive to stimuli.
--
Disclaimer: These are simply some of my personal opinions.
UPDATED 9/26/99 http://home.earthlink.net/~huddler
