Sleeping time story
Bedtime Stories | Free 5 Min Bedtime Stories for Kids Online Bedtime Stories
The Classic fairytale of Cinderella: a young girl, mistreated by her step-mother and step-sisters, who finds out that dreams really can come true.
The Classic Fairytale Story of Snow White with a Modern Twist: Who is the “fair”est of them all? Snow White of course!
A Bedtime Story of Honesty, Courage and Truth. If Pinocchio is to become a Real boy he needs to learn how to be honest, brave and true.
A Grimm’s Brother Tale: A miller tells a tale that his daughter can turn straw into gold. A strange little man is willing to help…for a price. Guess his name and he will be gone…but what is his name?
Goldilocks and the Three Bears ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids. Goldilocks finds the three bears cottage in the woods. Should she make herself comfortable?
Hansel and Gretel Bedtime Stories for Kids. When Hansel and Gretel go in search of food, they find a gingerbread house. But who is inside?
A Story of Friendship, Love and Courage. Rapunzel’s Story ~ A Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale. An evil witch has trapped Rapunzel in a tower. Can her long hair or love save her?
A Story of Courage, Justice and Self-Awareness. Merlin the Magician places a magic sword in a stone…whomever can pull it out is the rightful king.
A Bedtime Story of Acceptance and Self-Awareness. A Mama Duck is proud when her six ducklings hatch from their eggs. But one duckling does not look like the others? Is he truly an Ugly Duckling?
The classic Brother’s Grimm fairytale that sparked the Disney adaptation.
A Story of Courage, Learning and Love. The Classic fairy tale: The Little Mermaid falls in love with a prince on shore and she makes a deal with the Sea Witch to become human. But without her voice, how can the prince fall in love with her?
This Classic Folktale is adapted from the original story of “Aladdin” from The Arabian Nights. Aladdin, the Genie and the Magic Lamp work to impress the princess who wishes to be a commoner.
A Story of Courage, Kindness to Animals and Learning. The Classic Tale of a male deer, Bambi, his mother and his adventures learning in the woods.
A Story of Charity, Compassion and Justice, from England. Robin Hood takes part in an archery contest thrown by the Sheriff of Nottingham. Will he realize its a trap before it is too late? One of the many Tales of Robin Hood.
This is the Legend Tale of Maui the Demi-God from Moana. It is part of our Classic Bedtime Stories for Kids Collection. It has been adapted from the Tales of Maui as well as Disney’s version of Moana.
A Bedtime Story in Simple English for Kids. A toy rabbit learns that through a child’s love it can become real.
The Classic Tale of the Snow Queen: Gerda and Kai struggle to fight the Snow Queen and find the balance between Good and Evil.
The Classic Fairy Tale of Sleeping Beauty. Princess Aurora has been cursed by Maleficent. When she pricks herself on a spinning wheel on her 16th birthday, she is put into a deep sleep for 100 years.
Who can save her?
Bedtime Story for Kids: The Gift of the Magi, A Christmas Story. Della and Jim wish to give each other the perfect Christmas present, but how will they come up with the money?
A Bedtime Story of Friendship, Courage and Acceptance. . The story tells of the time Pocahontas saved the life of settler John Smith from her father, Powhatan.
A Cinderella Story ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids
The Classic fairytale of Cinderella: a young girl, mistreated by her step-mother and step-sisters, who finds out that dreams really can come true.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Story ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids
The Classic Fairytale Story of Snow White with a Modern Twist: Who is the “fair”est of them all? Snow White of course!
Pinocchio Story ~ Fairy Tale Bedtime Stories in English for Kids
A Bedtime Story of Honesty, Courage and Truth. If Pinocchio is to become a Real boy he needs to learn how to be honest, brave and true.
Beauty and the Beast Classic Tale ~ Fairy Tale Stories for Kids
The classic fairy tale of a beautiful woman and the monstrous beast.
Rumpelstiltskin ~ A Fairy Tale Bedtime Story for Kids
A Grimm’s Brother Tale: A miller tells a tale that his daughter can turn straw into gold. A strange little man is willing to help…for a price. Guess his name and he will be gone…but what is his name?
Goldilocks and the Three Bears ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids
Goldilocks and the Three Bears ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids. Goldilocks finds the three bears cottage in the woods. Should she make herself comfortable?
Hansel and Gretel ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids
Hansel and Gretel Bedtime Stories for Kids. When Hansel and Gretel go in search of food, they find a gingerbread house. But who is inside?
Rapunzel by the Brothers Grimm ~ Bedtime Stories
A Story of Friendship, Love and Courage. Rapunzel’s Story ~ A Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale.
An evil witch has trapped Rapunzel in a tower. Can her long hair or love save her?
The Sword in the Stone: a King Arthur Legend of the Sword Story
A Story of Courage, Justice and Self-Awareness. Merlin the Magician places a magic sword in a stone…whomever can pull it out is the rightful king.
The Ugly Duckling Story ~ Fairy Tale Story for Kids in English
A Bedtime Story of Acceptance and Self-Awareness. A Mama Duck is proud when her six ducklings hatch from their eggs. But one duckling does not look like the others? Is he truly an Ugly Duckling?
The Frog Prince: The Story of the Princess and the Frog ~ Bedtime Stories
The classic Brother’s Grimm fairytale that sparked the Disney adaptation.
The Little Mermaid Story ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids in English
A Story of Courage, Learning and Love. The Classic fairy tale: The Little Mermaid falls in love with a prince on shore and she makes a deal with the Sea Witch to become human.
But without her voice, how can the prince fall in love with her?
Aladdin and the Magic Lamp from The Arabian Nights ~ Bedtime Stories
This Classic Folktale is adapted from the original story of “Aladdin” from The Arabian Nights. Aladdin, the Genie and the Magic Lamp work to impress the princess who wishes to be a commoner.
Bambi Story: A Life in the Woods ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids in English
A Story of Courage, Kindness to Animals and Learning. The Classic Tale of a male deer, Bambi, his mother and his adventures learning in the woods.
Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow Story ~ Legend Stories for Kids
A Story of Charity, Compassion and Justice, from England. Robin Hood takes part in an archery contest thrown by the Sheriff of Nottingham. Will he realize its a trap before it is too late? One of the many Tales of Robin Hood.
Maui from Moana: Tales of the Demi-God ~ Legend Stories for Kids
This is the Legend Tale of Maui the Demi-God from Moana.
It is part of our Classic Bedtime Stories for Kids Collection. It has been adapted from the Tales of Maui as well as Disney’s version of Moana.
The Velveteen Rabbit Story ~ Bedtime English Story for Kids
A Bedtime Story in Simple English for Kids. A toy rabbit learns that through a child’s love it can become real.
The Snow Queen Fairy Tale Story ~Bedtime Story for Kids
The Classic Tale of the Snow Queen: Gerda and Kai struggle to fight the Snow Queen and find the balance between Good and Evil.
Sleeping Beauty Fairy Tale Story ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids
The Classic Fairy Tale of Sleeping Beauty. Princess Aurora has been cursed by Maleficent. When she pricks herself on a spinning wheel on her 16th birthday, she is put into a deep sleep for 100 years. Who can save her?
The Gift of the Magi Story ~ A Holiday Story for Kids
Bedtime Story for Kids: The Gift of the Magi, A Christmas Story. Della and Jim wish to give each other the perfect Christmas present, but how will they come up with the money?
Pocahontas and John Smith Story ~ Folktales Stories for Kids
A Bedtime Story of Friendship, Courage and Acceptance.
. The story tells of the time Pocahontas saved the life of settler John Smith from her father, Powhatan.
The Emperor’s New Clothes Story ~ Bedtime Stories
A Bedtime Story in Simple English for Kids. The Emperor is fooled into believing he is wearing magic clothes which can’t be “seen”.
Mulan Story ~ Tale of Hua Mulan Bedtime Stories | English Story for Kids
A Bedtime Story in Simple English for Kids. Based on the “Ballad of Mulan” and Disney’s Mulan, this is a legend tale about a girl who goes in disguise as a boy and joins the army in her brother’s place.
Short Stories for Kids ~ Folk tales, Fairy Tales, Riddles, Legends, Poems
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Sleeping Beauty Fairy Tale Story ~ Bedtime Stories for Kids
This is the Fairytale story of Sleeping Beauty, the Tale of Princess Aurora/Briar Rose.
This Classic Fairy Tale combines parts of the Charles Perrault, Grimm Brothers and Disney versions and is reimagined with a modern ending. It is brought to you by Stories to Grow by.
New #MeToo version! Inspire Today's Girls!
Long ago in France there lived a King and Queen. More than anything, they longed for a child. At last, to their great happiness, the Queen gave birth to a little girl. All the bells in the land were rung with joy.
Thanks to Artist, Fernl
The King and Queen invited all the fairies in the kingdom to the Naming Party for the baby. And what a party it was! Plates and silverware of pure gold were set with care before each guest. But one fairy, Maleficent, who had left 50 years before and had not been seen in all that time, showed up at the door. Quickly the King and Queen found a place setting for the new guest. But alas, the plate and the silverware were not of pure gold.
This made the old fairy very angry.
Soon it was time for each Fairy to give her blessing to the baby. When it came to Maleficent’s turn, she stood up and pointed her long finger at the sleeping baby girl in the cradle.
“I declare, before all of you,” Maleficent called out, “that this child, on her 16th birthday, shall prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel, and die!”
Thanks to Artist, Elveariel
With a whoosh of smoke, the evil fairy vanished. Everyone cried out with alarm, as you can imagine. But one fairy had not yet given her blessing. The King and Queen asked this fairy, whose name was Merryweather, to reverse the curse. Merryweather shook her head sadly – that was not possible. But she could soften the curse.
“On her 16th birthday,” she said, “when the princess pricks her finger on the spinning wheel, instead of dying she will fall asleep for 100 years.”
Thanks to Artist, Shambhavi, 11, UK
“One hundred years!” said the Queen.
“After our daughter turns 16, we will not know her anymore!”
The King ordered every spinning wheel in the kingdom to be brought to the palace and burned. To be extra sure the princess would not be anywhere near a spinning wheel, he also ordered the fairy Merryweather, along with two other fairies, Flora and Fauna, to take the baby far away. The fairies would raise the child in a cottage, deep in the woods. There, they would keep her safe until after her 16th birthday. After that day it would be safe to bring back the princess, who had been named Aurora, to the castle.
Aurora grew up knowing no others than the three fairies, whom she knew as her aunts. The animals of the forest were her friends.
Thanks to Artist, Fernl
The birds and the deer, the chipmunks and the rabbits, followed her around as she fed them treats and cooed to them. From the time she was little, Aurora was told she must stay inside the hills that surrounded them.
She did not mind that in the least. The woods were wide and deep inside the hills, and there was plenty of room for her to play.
One day, Aurora came home to the cottage to find her three aunts preparing for a party. “What’s going on?” she said.
“Tonight we will celebrate your 16th birthday!” said Flora.
Thanks to Artist, Parispic
“It is?” said Aurora. “That means tomorrow I go back to the castle!”
“Yes!” said Merryweather. “We have kept you safe from that spinning wheel for 16 years. Soon it will be time for you to take up your royal life as a princess.”
“And the first thing for you will be to get married,” said Fauna.
“Married, already?” said Aurora. “Do you know who I’m supposed to marry?”
“We do,” said Fauna with a wave of her hand, “but there’s no need to worry about that. Even if he’s a bit strange, some might say a bit horrid, you won’t have to spend much time with him,after all.
”
“And he does come from a fine family,” Flora added with a quick smile.
“Wait a minute!” said Aurora, pulling back. “Why do you say he’s a bit horrid?”
“It’s best not focus on such things, dear,” said Merryweather.
“Just do everything your husband tells you to do,” said Flora, “and you will be fine.”
“This is not turning out like I thought!” cried Aurora. “How long do I have to stay married?”
“For the rest of your life, of course,” said Fauna.
“No, no, this is all wrong!” cried Aurora. She turned away, then said in a firm voice, “I would rather prick my finger on a spinning wheel and fall asleep for 100 years than have to marry someone I don't want to marry! Maybe by the time I wake up, people won’t have to get married if they don’t want to!” And she ran out the door.
“Dear me,” said Merryweather to the other two fairies. “I don’t believe that went over very well.”
Aurora ran deep into the woods where her animal friends lived.
Thanks to Artist, Betsybauer
A deer hopped beside her, along with the rabbits and chipmunks. “We have to get out of here,” she said to all of them. Then pointing to a mountain pass, she said, “We will go right through the hills.”
Soon Aurora came to a road. In the distance was a carriage, coming closer to her. As the rider approached, her animal friends scattered.
“Hail!” said the stranger. “I’m afraid my carriage scared away your pets. May I give you a lift?”
Aurora had never seen a man before. But she couldn’t think about that – unless she could find a spinning wheel, the very next day her aunts would take her back to the palace.
“Actually,” said Aurora to the stranger, “there is something I need a great deal.”
“What’s that?” said the stranger, hopping out of the carriage. Very nicely dressed was he, and well mannered, too.
Thanks to Artist, FERNL
“A spinning wheel,” said Aurora.
“A spinning wheel!” said the stranger. “But there are none left in the land – everyone knows that.”
“Well, you see,” said Aurora, rubbing her hands together, “I have this friend. She needs a spinning wheel in the worst way.” Aurora looked directly at the stranger. “It’s a matter of life or death.”
The stranger looked at Aurora’s eyes. At last, he said, “I may know of one,” he said. “But this needs to stay between you and me.” The stranger stepped closer.
“Not far from here lives an old woman who spun yarn all her life. When the orders came to burn all the spinning wheels, she could not bear to let go of her beloved spinning wheel since it had been in her family for many years. She came to me,” he said, pointing down the road, “as I’m a prince from the next kingdom. She begged me to let her store it away safely. So I put it in the attic room of my castle tower, where no one ever goes, until the 16 years had passed.”
“She begged me to let her store it away safely,” said the prince.
“Would you take me to your castle tower?” said Aurora.
“I shouldn’t,” said the prince. Then after a moment, he said, “But I will.”
She stepped onto his carriage. Soon they were at the tower, and they both stepped out. The prince said, “This is not for your friend, is it?”
“Thank you for taking me here,” said Aurora. “I will always remember your kindness. Now if you please, I must do what I must do.”
Aurora turned and went up the tower stairs to the very last stair. The door in front of her creaked open. Inside, all was dark and musty. She could barely take a step for all the spider webs. But she pushed them aside and stepped forward. There, in a far corner, was the spinning wheel. From a small window, she could tell the sun was already setting. “I hope this works,” she said, “before it’s too late.”
Thanks to Artist, Shambhavi, 11, UK
Aurora held out her finger to the tip of the spindle.
She pricked her finger on that spindle. One tiny droplet of blood dripped from her finger. At once, Aurora felt dizzy. She fell onto an old dusty velvet blanket that lay on the attic floor, and fell into a deep sleep. Moments later, all the others in the castle, servants and royals alike, fell asleep too, and so did the prince, who was still waiting for her outside the tower. Within hours, thorns and vines had sprung up and wrapped around the castle, so thickly that no human or beast could pass through.
For 100 years, Aurora and the others slept.
Thanks to Artist, ChristyTortland
After 100 years had passed, Aurora blinked her eyes awake. Then all the others in the castle also awoke. Everyone started to do what they had been doing when they had fallen asleep 100 years before. The thorns and vines around the castle melted away.
Aurora stepped down the tower stairs to find the prince.
Thanks to Artist, FERNL
Together, they stepped into the prince’s carriage.
Down the road to the market square, they discovered a whole new world. Bicycles and streetcars, cameras and streetlights – such marvels to behold!
Perhaps best of all, they learned that in this strange new time, it was quite all right for young women and men to get to know each other, if that’s what they wanted to do, and even perhaps to fall in love. As Aurora and the Prince took each other’s hand to explore this wonderful new world together, that is exactly what they wanted to do.
Think and Share Questions: See Other Kids Comments below!
Question 1: Choose one character. How did that person or animal change/grow/learn by the end of the story?
Question 2: Say what you think the story is trying to show you.
How the science of sleep arose
Irina Zavalko, Vladimir Kovalzon
Nature, No.
3, 2014
| Irina Mikhailovna Zavalko — junior researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Member of the Youth Committee of the Somnology Section of the Physiological Society. I. P. Pavlova, member of the European Society for Sleep Research program. The main scientific interests are related to the psychophysiological and clinical study of sleep. nine0005 |
| Vladimir Matveyevich Kovalzon - Doctor of Biological Sciences, neurophysiologist, specialist in the experimental study of sleep, chief researcher at the Institute of Ecology and Evolution named after A.I. A.N. Severtsov RAS, Chairman of the Somnologists Section of the Physiological Society named after A.N. I. P. Pavlova. Engaged in general and experimental somnology. |
Somnology is one of the most rapidly developing areas of neuroscience that studies the mechanisms and functions of sleep, as well as diseases associated with its disturbance [1–4].
This science is young (it turned 60 last year), but people have been interested in sleep and dreams since ancient times. How modern somnology was formed will be discussed in our article. nine0005
Sleep has always been associated with something magical, and many peoples considered dreams as a way to communicate with the other world. In ancient Greece, in temples dedicated to the god of healing Asclepius, diseases were “diagnosed” according to dreams. In many ancient cultures, sleep was seen as a state intermediate between life and death. This is evidenced by the beliefs that exist at the present time, according to which the soul of a person during sleep goes beyond the body and soars in the "cosmic space", and returns in the morning. But if you paint the face with paint or change the appearance of a person, then the soul will not be able to recognize its body and the person will die [5]. Such ideas were based on the absence of reactions in a sleeping person to external influences, as well as on the frequent cases of death in a dream or upon awakening (in the modern sense, from a heart attack or stroke).
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The connection between sleep and death is also mentioned in ancient Greek mythology. So, the god of sleep, Hypnos, was the brother of the god of death, Thanatos, and the carrier of the souls of the dead, Charon. The same view of the nature of sleep was reflected in ancient philosophy. Aristotle, in treatises that have come down to us, speaks of the proximity of sleep to the state of death: “... sleep, apparently, belongs by its nature to such states, as, for example, the boundary between life and non-life, and the sleeping person does not exist completely, nor does it exist, for the state of wakefulness is inherent in life mainly due to sensation” [6]. nine0005
The understanding of sleep as a state close to death reigned in the minds of Europeans until the end of the 19th century, which largely delayed the emergence and slowed down the development of the science of sleep. However, in the East, in India and China, sleep occupied a more honorable place. The Indian religious and philosophical treatises of the Veda and Upanishads, created by unknown authors, were transmitted orally for many centuries and, finally, were written in Sanskrit on tree bark and palm leaves.
In these records, miraculously survived to this day, two types of sleep were described - without dreams (deep) and with dreams, and dreams were already considered as a separate form of consciousness [7]. Such a concept is close to modern classifications of sleep, which distinguish three functional states: wakefulness, non-REM and REM sleep 1 .
Forerunners of modern somnology
Although the idea of the relationship between sleep and death delayed its study for centuries, even in the Middle Ages there were some arguments about the causes of sleep. In the XII century. the nun Hildegard of Bingen considered it akin to eating food and associated it with the fall of Adam. In the XVII-XVIII centuries. the causes of sleep were considered to be a lack or excess of any fundamental substances: the lack of an "animal spirit" consumed during physical exertion; lack of "vital ether" caused by fatigue; an excess of "nervous spirit" secreted by the brain during wakefulness; thickening of the blood, preventing the flow of "spirits", etc.
[8]. nine0005
In the 19th century mystical concepts gradually began to give way to physiological and chemical ones, but the essence did not change much. Adherents of the hemodynamic theory P. Cabanis and I. Muller associated sleep with stagnation of blood in the brain, and K. Bernard, A. Mosso and I. R. Tarkhanov - with anemia. The Czech anatomist J. Purkinje believed that sleep is caused by a rush of blood to the nerve centers, their swelling, as a result of which the fibers passing through them lose their conductivity and connection with other parts of the brain. Even less plausible theories have been put forward. According to one of them, during sleep, perceiving neurons retract their endings, interrupting communication with the outside world. The only one who tried to prove his theory was Mosso. He placed a person on a scale board and found that when falling asleep, the head end of the scales rises, and this seemed to indicate an outflow of blood from the head. However, the method of plethysmography invented by him 2 showed that the rise of the head of the scales observed during falling asleep is provided by blood flow to the limbs, and lowering upon awakening is due to its outflow into the abdominal cavity, and not at all to the head.
In turn, the movement of the mass of blood in the body is associated with the activity of the sympathetic nervous system. When falling asleep, its tone decreases (the vessels of the arms and legs expand), and upon awakening it increases (the vessels of the limbs narrow) [9].
The next important step in the development of somnology was the study of sleep deprivation. One of the first scientists to conduct such experiments on animals was our compatriot M. M. Manaseina 3 (1843–1903). According to her, sleep is a necessary process inherent in all mammals. In experiments, she did not let the puppies sleep, and after about five sleepless days they died. Manaseina described in detail physiological changes in the body and macroanatomical signs of cerebrovascular accident and degeneration of brain cells.
Manaseina's results, published in German and French journals in the 1880–1890s, had a wide resonance in the European scientific community and caused a number of similar works.
They also revealed significant changes in the brain tissue of animals after sleep deprivation. At the modern level, experiments on long-term sleep deprivation were first performed only in 1983, i.e. 100 years after Manaseina, A. Rexchaffen and colleagues. They used a "carousel" technique that allowed the rat to be deprived of up to 90% of the daily sleep time. Such experiments (which are being continued by the next generation of scientists at the present time) confirmed that prolonged sleep deprivation does indeed lead to the death of animals within a few weeks. The reasons for this are the catastrophic destruction of the immune system and the development of sepsis [1].
In 1877, the German physiologist W. Preyer first suggested that during wakefulness a certain hypothetical substance accumulates in the body (he called it ponogenic, from the Greek πονοζ - 'load', 'fatigue'), leading to the development of sleep and in the process of sleep is collapsing. Preyer believed that this substance could be creatinine or uric acid.
After the publication of experiments on sleep deprivation by Manaseina, the method proposed by her began to be used to confirm the existence and search for this hypothetical "hypnotoxin". R. Legendre and A. Pierron in France and K. Ishimori in Japan not only confirmed significant histological changes in the brain of deprived dogs, but also showed that if their blood serum is transfused into a dog that has slept enough, then it will fall asleep again. Numerous experiments were carried out to search for and isolate hypnotoxin, but they were never successful 4 . According to modern ideas, the most likely candidate may be adenosine, which is released during the breakdown of the main energy source in the cell - adenosine triphosphate (ATP).
Approximately in the same years, the "center" of sleep was described, which proved the participation of the brain in the mechanisms of this process. During the First World War, the Austrian neurologist K. von Economo, examining the brains of patients who died from infectious lethargic encephalitis, suggested that there are a “sleep center” and a “wake center” in the hypothalamus [1].
This hypothesis was confirmed in 1924, the Swiss physiologist W. R. Hess in experiments on electrical stimulation of the thalamus and hypothalamus: stimulation of the thalamus with a weak current caused sleep in a cat, and with a stronger one - excitation. Hess' work on the functional organization of the diencephalon was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1949.
Birth of modern somnology
sleep as an important process, no less worthy of study than wakefulness, has not yet been recognized. Thus, the great physiologist I. P. Pavlov continued to consider sleep "a state of diffuse cortical inhibition." It must be said that such a purely intuitive understanding of the nature of sleep does not diverge from the latest experimental data, but only in relation to the slow-wave phase [1]. nine0005
Among the pioneers in the study of sleep in the "pre-electroencephalographic era" it is necessary to note N. Kleitman, a native of Chisinau, who by fate ended up in the United States during the First World War.
His work on studying the effects of sleep deprivation on himself amazed Pavlov himself at the time! Kleitman became interested in the problem of sleep at a time when this topic seemed to be of no interest to anyone. In his encyclopedic monograph Sleep and Wakefulness , published in 1939, he first formulated the concept of the existence of a "basic rest-activity cycle". This hypothesis (the author considered it his greatest scientific achievement), far ahead of its time, has received numerous confirmations in recent decades in studies on humans and experiments on animals. Now Kleitman's concept forms the basis of one of the most fruitful and rapidly developing areas in psychophysiology - the study of intraday human biorhythms. Now it can be considered proven that in addition to the 25-hour, “circadian”, our entire life is permeated by an hour and a half “diurnal” rhythm, which determines the alternation of drowsiness and alertness, hunger and thirst during the day, and at night - the change of slow and fast sleep.
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In Russia and the USSR, a pioneer in the study of sleep physiology was Pavlov's student, the founder of the Rostov school of physiologists N. A. Rozhansky. In 1913, he defended his dissertation "Materials for the Physiology of Sleep" in St. Petersburg, which was the result of experiments on dogs. In it and in subsequent publications, he expressed a new idea of wakefulness and sleep as the most complex biological reflexes "with the effect of either a diffuse lowering of stimulus thresholds during wakefulness, or diffuse inhibition, i.e. increase irritation thresholds in a sleepy state. Rozhansky was also a pioneer in the study of bird sleep. On the basis of his own experiments and the work of his colleagues, he came to the conclusion that there is a separate sleep center and a wakefulness center located in the subcortical-stem part of the brain, since these reflexes are also preserved in hemispheric birds [11]. It is also necessary to note the forgotten, but recently discovered by I.
N. Pigarev, the work of K. M. Bykov. In the 1930s, together with a team of collaborators, he conducted an extensive (unfortunately, long unknown) study of the effects of sleep deprivation in dogs [12]. nine0005
The development of somnology was hampered by the lack of a method to study sleep. It was possible to judge whether a person was sleeping or not only by indirect signs (posture, changes in heart rate and breathing, body temperature), and it was impossible to determine the depth of sleep without waking the sleeper. For the same reason, the state of natural sleep was mistaken for something similar to hypnosis, coma, winter and summer hibernation (hibernation).
The invention of the 1928 by the German psychiatrist G. Berger of the method of recording brain biopotentials - electroencephalography. However, at first the discovery was perceived with great distrust, since these potentials have such a small amplitude that they can be easily confused with interference recorded by then primitive equipment.
Therefore, Berger's method was recognized only a few years later (in 1934), when the famous physiologists E. Adrian and B. Matthews confirmed his results.
Berger was the first to describe the differences in the electroencephalographic rhythms of a waking and sleeping person, which became a turning point in the development of somnology. American scientists from Harvard and Chicago Universities became interested in an objective study of sleep. At 1937–1939 A number of papers have been published describing major sleep phenomena such as sleep spindles and delta waves. In 1937, A. Loomis, E. Harvey and J. Hobard first drew attention to the inconstancy of the electroencephalographic picture of sleep and created the first classification of its stages. Much later (in 1976), the importance of an objective study was also confirmed by M. Karskadon, who for the first time clearly showed the discrepancy between the actual duration of sleep and the subjective sensations of patients.
The advent of electroencephalography led to a number of discoveries in the study of sleep.
At 1937 F. Bremer in Brussels in famous experiments on the isolated brain of a cat showed that when transected at a lower level (when the connections between most of the trunk and the hemispheres of the brain remain unaffected), the alternation of sleep and wakefulness patterns is preserved, and at a higher level - the brain falls into a state of "unwaking" sleep (in fact, coma, see Fig.).
Initially, these works were erroneously interpreted - the brain falls asleep due to a decrease in the influx of impulses from the senses. The experiments of J. Moruzzi and H. Megun, carried out in 1949. They confirmed that the transition from sleep to wakefulness is manifested by desynchronization (the electrical activity of the brain changes from high-amplitude low-frequency rhythms of deep sleep to low-amplitude fast rhythms during wakefulness), which is triggered by a certain structure located in the brain stem - the reticular formation. In subsequent work, it turned out that although this structure is activated by afferent stimuli (from the sense organs), its damage leads to continuous deep sleep (coma, as in Bremer's study).
Thus, the reticular ascending activating system was discovered - a special structure responsible for maintaining wakefulness. At first, it was considered diffuse, but, according to modern somnology, it represents a dozen specific clusters of nerve cell bodies (“wakefulness centers”, which are located “inside” the ascending activation system), releasing various chemical transmitters [1-4]. nine0005
Discovery of REM sleep
By the middle of the 20th century. many physiologists believed that the questions of the phenomenology and mechanism of sleep had largely been solved. They had no idea about the cyclicity of night sleep, because due to paper savings, electroencephalograms during sleep were recorded either at the beginning of the night, or in fits and starts over a few minutes several times a night. And the prospect of staying awake all night, recording the sleep of the subject, attracted few people. However, in the second half of the XX century. Another great event in somnology took place: the REM sleep phase was discovered (and subsequently interpreted as a separate functional state).
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Our colleague I. N. Pigarev says: “It is not so important who made this or that discovery first ; it is much more important who made it last !”. The discovery of the American continent, for example, is now well known to have occurred repeatedly over the centuries, both before and after Columbus. The last in the series of "discoverers" was Amerigo Vespucci - this part of the world is named after him.
This analogy fully applies to the history of the discovery of REM sleep. This condition has been repeatedly observed in animals, including humans. The Roman poet Lucretius (I century BC. ), the French physician J. Fernel (1554), the Italian natural philosopher F. Fontana (1765) and others. However, their scattered observations remained out of sight of natural philosophers, doctors and the European reading public in general, which was explicitly or implicitly influenced by Aristotelian ideas about sleep as a marginal and passive state (see also: [13]). nine0005
A special role in the discovery of REM sleep in the twentieth century.
played by Soviet researchers M. P. Denisova and N. L. Figurin. In 1926, they first described in children (aged from two months to two years) movements of the eyeballs every 50 minutes, rapid breathing and reduced general motor activity [14]. This work interested Kleitman, professor of physiology at the University of Chicago. He mentioned it in his 1939 monograph, and many years later, in the early 1950s, after the appearance of the first electroencephalographs, he instructed his graduate student Yu. Azerinsky to check these data. nine0005
At first, Azerinsky tried to register his own son's eye movements with the help of a movie camera, but her chirping prevented him from sleeping. Then he developed a new method for recording eye movements (electrooculography, EOG) and studied the nighttime sleep of children and adults. The method of recording eye movements allowed researchers to separate fast eye movements from slow inherent in falling asleep. The work was based on the Kleitman hypothesis, according to which eye movements will help to distinguish between superficial sleep and deep sleep.
Azerinsky and Kleitman themselves interpreted the results obtained in their famous article, published in 1953 [15].
Interestingly, Kleitman, who was distinguished by exceptional scientific conscientiousness, at first did not believe Azerinsky and suspected that he was "adjusting" his results to a working hypothesis! He brought his daughter to the laboratory, recorded her EEG and EOG during a night's sleep and made sure that rapid eye movements do appear periodically [15].
However, this was not yet the discovery of a new state - only the discovery of intermittent flashes of unusual eye movements in some subjects (it was not even clear if they all!) during a night's sleep. The discovery of sleep with rapid eye movements occurred a few years later, and it is associated with the name of another graduate student of Kleitman, V. Dement. It was he who for the first time continuously recorded sleep electroencephalograms of 33 people throughout the night. Based on such registrations, it was found that after falling asleep, electroencephalographic signs gradually change towards deep sleep, but after about an hour and a half, the first episode of sleep with rapid eye movements occurs.
Then such cycles are repeated several times during the night, and their duration is on average 90-100 min. The duration of these episodes and the intensity of rapid eye movements increase from evening to morning.
Thus, all the main characteristics of human sleep at night have been described. Over the next half century of the rapid development of somnology, it has been convincingly shown that these patterns are inherent in absolutely all people on Earth, without a single exception, and do not depend on age, gender, race, individual physiological and psychological characteristics. According to the presence of eye movements, Kleitman, Azerinsky and Dement regarded the state they described as a superficial sleep and called it stage 1 REM (eng. r apid e ye m ovement), i.e., the drowsiness stage with rapid eye movements.
These investigators were also the first to associate such a dream with dreams. This idea was prompted by the irregular breathing and heart rate that they observed in this state.
To test their hypothesis, they woke up the subjects and asked if they had dreams. It turned out that if a person is awakened from a state of sleep with rapid eye movements, then he usually describes colorful emotionally rich plot stories. And when awakening from sleep without rapid eye movements, such responses were rare. Sometimes the subject spoke of dim, unemotional visions. nine0005
Apparently, the first person to adequately describe REM sleep in experimental animals was R. Klaue, a post-graduate student of the famous German neurophysiologist A. Kornmüller. Even before the Second World War, in 1937, he published an article in German with the results (obtained using needle electrodes) of the electrical activity of the brain and neck muscles during natural sleep of experimental cats. Klaue described two stages of sleep and called them "stage 1" (light sleep accompanied by slow waves in the EEG and decreased muscle tone) and "stage 2 (deep sleep with a flattened EEG, loss of muscle tone and twitching of the limbs).
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Knowing nothing about Klaue’s work, the Soviet neurophysiologist L. R. Tskipuridze (unfortunately, untimely deceased), a student of the head of the Georgian physiological school I. S. Beritashvili, described the stages of “restful” and “restless” sleep according to the EEG and the behavior of experimental subjects cats [16]. Only half a century later, the text of this pioneering article was translated into English, but we could not find it on the Internet.
Dement knew nothing about the work of Klaue, and even more so about the work of Tskipuridze, and did not know the method of implanting chronic intracerebral electrodes in experimental animals. However, he also attempted to record a cat's EEG using needle electrodes inserted into the scalp. However, it turned out to be impossible to record the EEG in an awake cat by this method due to powerful muscle activity, which "masks" the weaker electrical activity of the cerebral cortex. But when the cat fell asleep, muscle activity subsided, and the EEG became visible.
So Dement managed to show that periods of flattening of the EEG and "twitching" of the eyeballs regularly appear in the sleep of cats and are combined with twitching of paws and vibrissae. However, Dement did not attach sufficient importance to the complete disappearance of the electromyogram (EMG) in this state and could not correctly assess the awakening thresholds in volunteer subjects and experimental cats, which is why he continued to consider the stage he had discovered "light", superficial sleep. She and Kleitman also called it "emergent" (suddenly occurring) stage 1, in contrast to the "descending" stage 1, which naturally occurs at the beginning of sleep [17]. nine0005
There are also some other authors who described episodes of EEG flattening in sleeping cats, but regarded them as periods of short-term awakening. Among such researchers are the American physiologist A. J. Derbyshire and co-authors (1936) and, even more surprisingly, a group of Swiss researchers (1953), which included the son of Nobel laureate W.
Hess R. Hess, Jr. and the future founder and first president of the European Society for the Study of W. Koell's Sleep!
M. Jouvet was the last among the “discoverers” of REM sleep 5 , it was he who finally realized the extraordinary importance of this discovery. He was the first to understand that REM sleep is not just one of the stages of normal (slow-wave sleep), but a separate functional state. Jouvet formed a modern idea of three fundamentally different states of the body: orthodox (ordinary) sleep, paradoxical and wakefulness. He called the sleep phase with rapid eye movements paradoxical because it is characterized by a combination of the highest brain activity and complete relaxation of skeletal muscles, representing, in his opinion, "active wakefulness directed inwards" [1]. nine0005
In 1959, Jouvet and his collaborators published a short article in French describing the muscular atony in cats that accompanies periods of sleep with a flattened EEG and rapid eye movements.
Thus, the need was identified to record muscle activity - the last of the three components required for the separation of wakefulness and various phases and stages of sleep. Now, with polysomnography (sleep recording), an electroencephalogram (EEG), an electrooculogram (EOG) and an electromyogram (EMG) are recorded. nine0005
All pioneers of REM sleep in the 20th century. encountered a complete misunderstanding and rejection of their results by not only ordinary, but also outstanding fellow neurophysiologists. It was well known that the fast, low-amplitude EEG rhythms were wakefulness, while the large, slow waves were sleep. If desynchronization occurs during sleep, this means a short-term awakening. The discovery of REM sleep contradicted the concept of the ascending reticular activating system, only recently accepted by all neurophysiologists, and meant a complete collapse of all old ideas regarding the passive nature of sleep. Nobody could understand or accept the new revolutionary paradigm.
Thus, Klaue's work was not noted either by Bremer in Belgium, or by the future Nobel laureate Hess in Switzerland, or by Moruzzi in Italy, or by Magun in the USA. And in general, none of the brain researchers of that time! nine0005
Dement could not publish his work on the cat for a long time. His employee (Dement does not give his last name in his memoirs) refused co-authorship in the article, five scientific journals consistently rejected the manuscript. Finally, the outstanding neurologist G. Jasper, having evaluated the results of Kleitman's PhD student, accepted the article without a review, at his own peril and risk, as editor-in-chief of the journal EEG and Clinical Neurophysiology (such an act would hardly be possible today!). And when Jouvet showed his notes to Bremer, he ridiculed him, stating that his electroencephalograph amplification "floats"! Only at the Lyon Symposium, held on 1963, a "consensus" was reached between the largest American and European experts regarding the discovery made by Dement in the USA and Jouvet in France a few years earlier.
By that time, the phenomenon of REM sleep had received independent confirmation in the laboratories of J. Evartz and the future Nobel laureate D. Hubel.
Jouvet wrote in one of his articles that at that time all American neurophysiologists were dominated by the dogmas of psychoanalysis, i.e. Freud's idea of the "protective" role of dreams preventing premature awakening. This false idea made it impossible to take an unbiased look at the real picture of "sleep with dreams." Continuing this thought, we can say that all somnologists (before Jouvet) were dominated by Aristotelian dogmas, and Manaseina, apparently, was the first, and Jouvet himself the last, who took a step towards liberation from them. Therefore, Jouvet is rightfully considered the greatest somnologist of the second half of the 20th century. nine0005
Today, somnology, despite its short history, has a large number of directions and areas of study. It includes not only fundamental aspects of research in the field of physiology, neurochemistry, genetics of sleep and circadian rhythms, but also practical ones.
The knowledge gained in research on the sleep-wake rhythm is actively used to plan work shift schedules and flight schedules; should also be involved in resolving issues on the calculation of time (cancellation or introduction of daylight savings time, changing time zones, etc.) [18]. nine0005
A separate field of sleep medicine deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all sleep disorders. These, in addition to the well-known insomnia (insomnia) and sleepwalking (one of the types of so-called parasomnias), include periodic limb movements during sleep, restless legs syndrome, disturbances in circadian rhythms and behavior in REM sleep; hypersomnia (excessive daytime sleepiness), as well as apnea - a syndrome of respiratory arrest, often accompanied by snoring. This disease will be discussed in our next article. nine0005
Literature
1. Kovalzon V. M. Fundamentals of somnology. Physiology and neurochemistry of the wakefulness-sleep cycle. M., 2011.
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Kovalzon V. M. Central mechanisms of regulation of the wakefulness-sleep cycle // Human Physiology. 2011. V. 37. No. 4. P. 124.
3. Petrov A. M., Giniatullin A. R. Sleep neurobiology: a modern view: Textbook. Kazan, 2012.
4. Kovalzon V. M. Brain and sleep: from neurons to molecules // Zhurn. higher nervous activity 2013. V. 62. No. 1. S. 48.
5. Fraser J. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion / Transl. from English M. K. Ryklin. M., 2001.
6. Aristotle. On the emergence of animals / Per. V. V. Karpova. M.; L., 1940. S. 192.
7. Lysenko V. G. Sleep and dream as states of consciousness: Upanishads and Shankara.
8. Borbeli A. The Secret of Sleep / Per. V. M. Kovalzon. M., 1989.
9. Wayne A. M. Three thirds of life. M., 1979.
10. Legendre R., Pieron A. Study of the need for sleep after prolonged wakefulness // Sleep Physiology. M., 1928. pp. 113–123.
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Burikov A. A. Mechanisms of sleep and wakefulness (how and why does the brain sleep?) // Koganovskie readings. Rostov-on-Don, 2012.
12. Bykov K. M. Changes in the body of an animal during prolonged sleep deprivation. Selected works. T. 3. M., 1958. S. 63–98.
13. Jouvet M. Castle of Dreams / Per. V. M. Kovalzon. Fryazino, 2006.
14. Kovrov G. V. To the question of the history of the discovery of REM sleep // Topical issues of somnology: Abstracts. M., 2000. S. 48.
15. Aserinsky E., Kleitman N. Regularly occurring periods of eye motility, and concomitant phenomena, during sleep // Science . 1953. V. 118. P. 273–274.
16. Tskipuridze L. R. Electrical activity of the cerebral cortex of a normal cat during natural sleep // Proceedings of the Institute of Physiology. I. S. Beritashvili AS GSSR. 1950. V. 8. S. 209–225.
17. Dement W. C. The paradox of sleep: the early years // Archives Italiennes de Biologie .
2004. V. 142. P. 333–345.
18. Kovalzon V. M., Dorokhov V. B. Concerning the new calculation of time // Priroda. 2012. No. 7. P. 65–66.
19. Siegel J. M. REM sleep // Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine / Eds M. H. Kryger, T. Roth, W. C. Dement. St. Louis, 2011. P. 92–111.
1 The terms "slow-wave" and "REM" sleep have about a dozen pairs of synonyms (slow-wave - fast-wave; normal, orthodox - paradoxical; sleep without rapid eye movements - sleep with rapid eye movements; telencephalic - rhombencephalic; calm - activated etc.). A single generally accepted English terminology has not yet been developed. Here we use paired Russian terms recommended by the founder of Russian "sleep medicine" and human sleep physiology A. M. Vein. nine0005
2 Plethysmography - registration of changes in the volume of a part of the body (head or limbs) associated with changes in the amount of blood entering the area under examination in the rhythm of cardiac activity.
3 For more details see: V. M. Kovalzon Forgotten founder of biochemistry and somnology // Priroda. 2012. No. 5. P. 85–89 (PDF, 5 Mb).
4 For more details, see: Kovalzon V. M. Search for the “sleep hormone” // Priroda. 1983. No. 4. P. 13–21 (DjVu, 4.4 Mb).
5 See also: V. M. Kovalzon Extraordinary adventures in the world of sleep and dreams // Nature. 2000. No. 1. P. 12–20 (DjVu, 4.2 Mb).
What Dreams Say: A History of Dream Interpretation
Since ancient times, dreams have seemed to be something mystical, hiding many secrets and mysteries. It was believed that they could show the future or the past, give a hint in a difficult situation, help to sort out feelings and thoughts. We tell how people interpreted dreams in different historical periods. nine0008
Dreams in primitive cultures
Little is known about the interpretation of dreams during this period. The reasons are quite understandable: there are not many artifacts that would help to understand the ancient people's ideas about dreams.
Nevertheless, some elements of primitive cultures survived long enough to be described.
Some researchers believe that ancient people considered sleep to be something like a small death. According to their ideas, during sleep the soul separated from the body and could visit other worlds. The British ethnographer Edward Burnett Tylor in his work "Primitive Culture" (1871) noted that some primitive tribes believed that during sleep the soul is literally next to the object or person that it dreams of. In addition, they thought that the "separated" soul could find its patron (totem), talk to the spirits, or receive a sign. nine0005
Tylor writes: “It is said that a whole Australian tribe was moved because one of the natives saw in a dream an owl of a certain breed, and their wise men explained that this dream foreshadowed the attack of another tribe. The Zulus ... [if] they see in a dream that the sick person has died, that his things are scattered, that he is buried with weeping and lamentations, they say: "We saw his death in a dream, therefore, he will not die.
" If they see wedding dances in a dream, then this is a sign of a funeral. Maori also think that to see a relative dying in a dream is to recovery, and to see him healthy is to death. nine0005
Thus, attempts to interpret dreams appeared with the first primitive cultures and were of no small importance to the survival of the tribe. Such sacralization of dreams was also characteristic of more developed societies.
Ancient Egypt. Ancient Greece
Ancient Egyptian civilization existed in the Nile Valley from the 4th millennium BC. e. according to the 4th c. n. e. The ideas of the ancient Egyptians about dreams were very similar to those of primitive people. They considered dreams to be something like a bridge between the world of the living and the world of the dead, a source of mystical experience that is important to correctly interpret. This could be done independently - with the help of dream books - or by contacting the priests. nine0005
In general, dreams were divided into "good" and "bad".
As noted in his work "Scribes of Ancient Egypt" M.A. Korostovtsev, “good” dreams, according to the Egyptians, were sent by the sun god Horus, and “bad” dreams were sent by the god of death, war and chaos Seth.
Several ancient Egyptian dream books have survived to this day. Apparently, it was customary to interpret the dreams of women and men differently. In addition, in order for dreams to be more “informative”, a person should fall asleep where it is easier for spirits to establish contact with him, that is, in a temple. Dreams in which a person saw gods were considered the most important: they could shed light on the events of the present or future, and also promised the fulfillment of desires. At the same time, nightmares could lead to the most terrible consequences, as they spoke of the wrath of the gods or spirits of the underworld. nine0005
In ancient Greece, ideas about dreams were generally similar to ancient Egyptian ones. Dreams seen in temples were considered so important that even some laws were based on them.
Deities and spirits can share information about the future, past and present. Nevertheless, some philosophers, such as Plato, have the idea that not all dreams are significant and have a divine origin. Aristotle considered sleep to be a special state of consciousness and was skeptical about the concept of prophetic dreams. nine0005
Middle Ages and Modern Times
In the Middle Ages, the attitude towards the interpretation of dreams changed dramatically. The church believed that this was a kind of witchcraft, and therefore did not welcome such a practice. The few attempts to investigate dreams were based more on ancient approaches.
In modern times, the situation began to change - scientists paid attention to dreams. They focused primarily on how dreams affect the human body and consciousness. There are first attempts to connect dreams with repressed desires, including those of an erotic nature. This was noted, for example, by the founder of modern sexology, Richard von Kraft-Ebing, in his book Sexual Psychopathy.
Of one patient he writes: "His sex life was spent in dreams..."
The 20th century and the present
It can be said that since the 20th century the interpretation of dreams has been divided into two directions. The first was connected with psychoanalysis and psychiatry in principle, the second with the revival of mystical ideas about dreams. True, the "revival" concerned rather educated people: in other strata of society, the interpretation of dreams all this time was and remained part of the superstitious, mystical picture of the world.
The most famous scientific work on the interpretation of dreams was the book of Sigmund Freud. In The Interpretation of Dreams, he notes that a dream in itself is a manifestation of repressed desires, which means that it can be used to understand violations of a person’s mental health (if any). In addition, a dream allows a person to rest during sleep, showing repressed desires not directly, but through a system of images and symbols.
