findings on sleep
During REM:
- Inner organs spring to life
- Blood flow to the brain increases 40%
- Heart speeds and slows w/o apparent reason
- Metabolism increases
Hard work of memorizing may not be enough to make us remember more. In fact it could be called counter productive.
Flashes of inspiration comes form a well rested, relaxed mind. Stop pushing it-you won’t recall the information through stress and strain.
Slow Wave- this is the relm where links are forged in our brains during REM.
Here below the level of dreams, cells that carry short term memories talk to long term and associations in order to establish and update connections. So we truly do know more in the morning than we did the night before.
The significant memories created that day have just been consolidated overnight durning REM into a more accesible form which may be the reason that there is a close connection between sleep and creativity.
To be more creative, to be more intuitive, to trust yourself more deeply, you have to sleep, you have to enter and play in the REM cycle.
These are some bits I gleaned from and article by Dr Terence J Sejnowiski @ Salk Institute.