Oneirology - History

History

The first recorded use of the word was in 1653. In the 19th century two advocates of this discipline were the French sinologists Marquis d'Hervey de Saint Denys and Alfred Maury. The field gained momentum in 1952, when Nathaniel Kleitman and his student Eugene Aserinsky discovered regular cycles. A further experiment by Kleitman and William C. Dement, then another medical student, demonstrated the particular period of sleep during which electrical brain activity, as measured by an electroencephalograph (EEG), closely resembled that of waking, in which the eyes dart about actively. This kind of sleep became known as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and Kleitman and Dement's experiment found a correlation of .80 between REM sleep and dreaming.

The independent and almost simultaneous confirmation of lucid dreaming by Stephen LaBerge of Stanford University and Keith Hearne encouraged further experiments and developments.

Read more about this topic:  Oneirology

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    The history of literature—take the net result of Tiraboshi, Warton, or Schlegel,—is a sum of a very few ideas, and of very few original tales,—all the rest being variation of these.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more
    John Adams (1735–1826)

    The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.
    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)