What Your Eyes Do When You Sleep
If Shakespeare wrote Hamlet today, his famous line “To sleep, perchance to dream” might sound a little different: “To sleep, certainly to dream–but I only remember the dreams I have during REM sleep stages.”
Not nearly as poetic, but then again, much more intriguing. In Shakespeare’s time, most people thought of sleep as an unchanging, dormant period of little interest. Hardly anything was known about sleep or dreaming.
In fact, it wasn’t until the discovery of REM sleep at the relatively late date of 1953 that scientists knew much about sleep at all!
Studying infants in the 1950′s, American physiologists Eugene Aserinsky and Nathaniel Kleitman reported that periods of eye movement and twitching occur during sleep.
They named these periods “rapid eye movement” (REM) sleep. At first they assumed that REM sleep occurred only in babies, but later investigations proved it occurs not only in all humans, but in all mammals – even in birds.
Sleep Stages
REM Sleep
We typically have about three to five periods of REM sleep per night. The first rapid eye movement period usually begins about 70 to 90 minutes after we fall asleep. These periods occur at intervals of one to two hours and vary in length from five minutes to more than an hour. Periods of REM sleep seem to be shorter at the beginning of the night and longer toward morning.
About 20 percent of sleep is REM sleep. If you sleep seven or eight hours a night, only around an hour and half of that time is spent in REM sleep.
However, the relative amount of REM sleep varies considerably with age: babies spend more than 80 percent of total sleep time in REM mode, while people over 70 spend less than 10 percent.
For those of us who think of sleep as a peaceful, largely static activity, we should think again: REM sleep is characterized by rapid, low-voltage brain waves and irregular breathing and heart rate. And the eye movements themselves, called saccades, are indeed rapid: The saccade is the fastest movement of an external part of the human body. The peak angular speed of the eye during a saccade reaches up to 1,000 degrees per second.
However, our muscles do largely “turn off” during REM sleep, effectively paralyzing the body, except for involuntary muscle jerks.
Non-REM (NREM) Sleep
NREM sleep is divided into four stages of increasing depth, leading to REM sleep. In stage one, people often believe they are fully awake, although they are beginning to lose conscious awareness of the external environment.
This stage can be thought of as a gateway between waking and sleep.
Stage four is the deepest stage of sleep. In contrast to REM sleep, during stage four the brain waves are slow and high voltage; breathing and heart rate are slow and regular; and blood pressure is low.
It is very difficult to wake people who are in this state, and, if they do wake up, they are extremely groggy. This is the stage in which night terrors and sleepwalking occur.
Dreaming
There’s no “perchance” about it: Everyone dreams, whether they remember their dreams or not. But most dreams-and almost all the dreams we can recall upon waking-occur during REM sleep.
Perhaps that is the reason our bodies’ muscles turn off during REM periods: If they didn’t, we would physically respond to the vivid dreams we have during REM sleep. Studies of people with malfunctioning REM systems show that those folks thrash around in their sleep, often punching their bedmates or hurting themselves as they act out their dreams.
Unanswered Questions, Theories, and Fun Facts
We know sleep is vital to our bodies and that REM sleep, in particular, seems to be intrinsically important, as it is so physiologically different from the other phases of sleep.
If dreams turn out to have some important function for humans (we still don’t know whether animals dream), then perhaps we need REM sleep solely in order to dream.
Another theory is that the amount of REM sleep per night in a species is closely correlated with the developmental stage of newborns.
The platypus for example, whose newborns are completely helpless and undeveloped, has eight hours of REM sleep per night; animals that can hunt, eat, keep warm, and defend themselves soon after birth (for example, dolphins or horses) need almost no REM sleep.
Update: But What Does Sleep Have To Do with My Vision?
Many of you have pointed out, correctly so, that this post didn’t have anything to do with vision. You are right. Sometimes I just like to pass along interesting information that have to do with the eyes or vision. In this case, I thought it was interesting that the eye is involved with the fastest movement our external bodies make (the saccades). I also think learning about the different stages of sleep is fascinating, since we spend so much of our lives sleeping…
For those of you looking for more vision tips, here’s something for you. We all know that a good nights sleep is important for our health, but do you know that a lack of sleep can lead to specific vision problems? According to the Mayo Clinic, continued lack of sleep or poor irregular sleeping patterns can lead to blurred vision and eye vexation.
But that’s not all, other problems include:
- Ischemic optic neuropathy (a vascular optic nerve lesion)
- Loss of vision in a single eye after waking up
- Papilledema (Swelling of the optic nerve)
- Vision Deterioration
Other doctors at the Mayo Clinic (E. ANDREW WALLER, MD; RICK E. BENDEL, MD; AND JOSEPH KAPLAN, MD), have put together a review of medical literature on sleep disorders and the eye (Mayo Clin Proc. 2008;83(11):1251-1261), which you should review if you suffer from poor sleep and any of the following ophthalmologic dieseases:
- floppy eye- lid syndrome
- primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) and normal-tension glaucoma (NTG)
- nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION)
- papilledema
- CPAP treatment–associated eye complications
If you’re eyes just glazed over reading that last section, don’t worry. For the rest of us it’s pretty simple. Get enough sleep. In case you’re not sure how much you should be getting, here are some general guidelines for different age groups from the Mayo Clinic:
| Age group | Recommended amount of sleep |
|---|---|
| Infants | 14 to 15 hours |
| Toddlers | 12 to 14 hours |
| School-age children | 10 to 11 hours |
| Adults | 7 to 9 hours |
Dear Orlin,
Thank You so much for yr kind free lessons sent to me!
Lynda
Thank you for the info Orlin. If you’re interested in the spritual purpose of deep sleep you might want to check out a book by Avatar Meher Baba, titled “Listen Humanity”. It contains an interesting chapter on the purpose of sleep for human beings.
Best regards,
Harm
thank you, very informative !!
i would like to understand does sleeping have to do with eyes’ and sight health? i was looking for such an info in the article as well..
thanks again!
Lynda, you are very welcome! Glad you enjoyed it!
Harm, thanks for the suggestion. I’m always looking to stay informed and explore new ideas, so I’ll take a look!
Hi Mohammad.
Thanks for your interest and asking a great question! There’s too much to cover on that topic with just a comment, so I’m going to add that to my list of blog posts to write. Keep checking back on the blog, as I’ll be looking to answer your question with a new blog post.
THIS IS FAKE ADVERTISING. on my email you are supposed to give me frikin tips on how to improve my eyes. not what rem/nrem sleep is!!! btw is the 30 day free trial still up? you could sell loads of them if you did it again. i wanted to buy it but couldn’ at the time. redo some trial offer apartr from the 90 day trial cuz it costs almost a hundred bucks
Hi Bob,
Thanks for your response. Both you and Mohammad are right, I should have put something more directly involved with vision in this post. Please see the update I made to the post, which will hopefully give you more information about sleep and how it can affect vision. Also, my intent is not to advertise anything, I’m just passing along interesting and/or useful information, with the hopes that people can find something to help them improve their vision!
To your vision – for life.
Orlin
Hi Orlin,
I like to continually be learning and experimenting with ways to improve heath and awareness. I’ve found that healthier consumption forcefully impacts awareness (i.e. I don’t get the write vitamins, I don’t feel so good or perform very well.)
Looking forward to hearing more on how REM impacts vision. Molecules of Emotion [Candace B. Pert] is a great book to check out if you havent already, its greatly expanded my awareness of how the body and brain work. Also Holosync® is a very effective method of achieving REM if you start listening to it before you sleep. The latter also enhances the ability to recall dreams, I generally start waking up with vivid memories after a few days of doing this.
thank you sir
Dear Orlin,
Thanks for your advice for rebuild my vision. Today i read your mail regarding what our eye do when we sleep.
C Acharya
hello Orlin,
thanks for sharing your views and ideas. My job requires 8hours of continuous computer work. I cant get rid of my glaases during my work in computer. What best can be done?
Thank you for your info sir, but I have a question to you, do people suffering from retinal disorders can do eye exercises?
I have symptoms like blue halos and pain in eye in bright light and doctors said to change my glasses but I feel something terrible happening to my eyes..I request you to give me any suggestions..Thankyou
Mr. Sorensen, I am almost 49 and hated the thought of glasses. I was prescribed them many times and discarded them equal number of times cause I looked awful in them and also for the following reasons. I sweat on my face the most, so would find the glasses moisting and unmanageable. I always ended getting a headache when I wore glasses, as my eyes never got used to looking up and down through the lens to see far and near. I also could never look from the corner of my eye and had to turn my full face to look, which I hated. In frustration I would just take off my glasses and feel better. I was always searching for ways and means to avoid wearing glasses and read a book by Dr. Bates, when I found your website. I am from Goa India so I had a problem to send foreign exchange to purchase your programme. My brother from the US gifted Rebuild Your Vision programme to me for Christmas 2010. My eyesight has greatly improved with it, though I must confess I followed the programme religiously in the beginning but now just do the exercises when I find my vision blurring. I do follow you vision tips and tricks. I sit in front of a computer screen at work and also have to do figure work as I look after office accounts. Thank you very much for helping me regain my vision without glasses through your programme. Everytime I see a person wearing glasses, I feel good about the problems I have avoided.
Hi, Orlin
Thank you very murch for your valuable information. Please provide me some exercise to improve my eye vision. Moreover How Can I get my normal eye sight to avoid using SPEC?
Thanks
Ancil
hey,
im sad to say….
but my visison just gets more and more blurred…..
i mean, i went for an eye test and the no. increased!!!!
i do all the eye exercises ane eat the recommeneded food…..
im sorry … but i still have hope
Nice bit of information.Must prove very helpful to me. Thankyou
Hello Orlin,
Thank you for the mail on REM & sleep.
As opposed to some of the understandings, the eyes have everything to do with the REM sleep. It has been suggested (or discovered)that the function of the Rapid Eye Movement is the “filing” of the day’s information, mostly gathered by the EYES, and “stored” in a kind of “temp file” of the brain, which during the REM is being “selected” and “distributed” to the adequate memory cells of the brain.
Too long to explain, but sleep is definitely a very important part of our life since this is the time when our intuitive brain is being most active: that’s why we say ‘let’s sleep on it” and if one is attentive, you have the answer to any problem in the morning, when one is still in Alpha state, and can receive the genuine unbiased responses from our mind, in contact with our inner self, without the interference of our conditioned rational brain.
Kind regards
Monique
Hi Jesse,
Thanks for the suggestion and I’ll definitely look into this. Always looking for the greatest information to share.
To your vision — for life,
Orlin
Hi Bharatt,
A lot of people are in your situation with not able to take off your glasses while at work. I suggest to everyone in this situation to use the 10-10-10 rule. In fact, I wrote an entire blog on it.
Rebuild Your Vision 10-10-10 Rule
To your vision — for life,
Orlin
Hi Abilash,
Unfortunately the Rebuild Your Vision Program will not help medical conditions like retinal disorders. It was designed for normal refractive errors like nearsightedness, farsightedness, aging vision/presbyopia, astigmatism, and computer vision syndrome. I would highly suggest speaking with your eye doctor.
To your vision — for life,
Orlin
Hi Marina,
That is awesome! We love hearing success stories like yours. Glasses are one of the most frustrating things to deal with and a lot of people can relate. Motivation and sticking to the program is HUGE for success with the Rebuild Your Vision program. Keep up with the routines to ensure you never have to wear glasses again.
To your vision — for life,
Orlin
Hi Ancil,
Below is a link to try an eye exercise.
http://www.rebuildyourvision.com/tryaneyeexercise/
This is just one of many eye exercises that is found in the Rebuild Your Vision program that will help reduce your dependency on your Specs with the ultimate goal of eliminating them all together, like Marina in the comment above did.
Let me know what you think.
To your vision – for life,
Orlin
Hi I really liked reading this blog. I have a 2 year girl and am always keen on all the places she go to during her sleep.
When she wakes up things are sometimes unhappy with her and it is interesting trying to figure out what happened.
I know a lot is going on with us. Some mornings I wake up and my vision is calm and clear.
Hi Orlin,
I could do the first level easily. Can you give the remaining seven levels link? and Moreover May I know the recommended food? I have one more doubt while doing this exercie we have to use our SPEC or without spec?
Thanks for your support
Ancil
Hello Orlin,
Thanks for the information provided.It would be nice if you could give information about the diet required in order to improve vision and avoid spectacles.
Thanks
Sofia
Hi Ancil,
Congratulations on mastering the first level quickly and easily. The remaining 7 exercises and levels are a part of the entire Rebuild Your Vision program located on our home page. Check it out and let me know how you master all the other exercises and levels.
To your vision — for life,
Orlin
Hi Sofia and Ancil,
There are actually a total of 17 vitamins, minerals, and herbal supplements that research shows are essential for optimum vision and eye health.
If you visit my eye vitamin page at http://www.eyevitaminhealth.com and scroll down about a quarter of the way, you will see the list of 17 vitamins, minerals and herbal supplements that should be taken in your daily regimen.
To your vision — for life,
Orlin
hi Orlin,
thanks for the information….it is really helping me….may one day i can stop wearing glasses….and that day i really inform…
Thank you.
Animals do dream in their sleep. I have noticed this sometimes when my dog is barking in its sleep.
Thanks for an informative article.
I have trouble getting more than five or six hours of sleep without interruption. I can readily go back to sleep within a few minutes when I wake, but wonder whether the total number of hours mentioned for adults must be completely uninterrupted or not?