Superwoman Is Dead

Most mothers fight a constant battle between stress and guilt. 

by Emuna Braverman

“The Age of the Superwoman is dead,” says Samantha Parent Walravens, editor of the recently released TORN: True Stories of Kids, Career & the Conflict of Modern Motherhood. I called Ms. Walravens at her Northern California home to discuss the impetus for the book and her goals and vision. We forged an instant bond because I know first-hand exactly what she is talking about.

Many of us today have bought into the superwoman myth. We think we can do it all – careers, children, healthy marriages – and then we realize that we still need to sleep at night!

Climbing Jacob’s Ladder

“He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.” — Genesis 28:12

The Torah portion for this week, Vayetze, is from Genesis 28:10–32:3 and Hosea 12:13–14:10.

The Jewish Sages teach that when Jacob was on his journey to the city of Harran, he ended up somewhere that he had not intended to go. But it was late, and so Jacob found a few stones, made a pillow, and went to sleep. As providence would have it, the place where Jacob slept was the holiest place on earth.

There, he had his famous dream in which Jacob saw a vision of a ladder resting on earth, stretching up to heaven. Angels were going up and down on it. When Jacob woke up he said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it” (Genesis 28:16). Jacob had unintentionally, but providentially, stumbled upon a virtual stairway to heaven.

Erotic Dreams What Happens When Experiences Wet Erotic Dreams

By Leena Kiri 

What is the dream?

The first question to be clarified is the difference between Sleep and dreams. Sleep calls the state of suspension of activities conscious mind and the will, which occurs periodically (For several hours a day, usually at night) and that enables rest of the muscular system and a change of neuronal activity. Now are studying the importance of sleep period in the settlement of consolidation of memory and learning. The opposite state is the wakefulness or consciousness and will.

The passage of the monitors to sleep and vice versa is regulated by the central nervous system, with special importance reticular system which is located in the brain stem.

Sleep Throughout the body minimizes its metabolic activity, the muscles relax, the heart rate is slower, blood pressure is reduced, and the inspirations are longer and shorter expirations. However, its activity does not decrease brain psychic during sleep. Periods psychic peak phases coincide with those given in the dreams, and studies had shown that employing up Sleep 50% of a newborn, from 30% to 35% at two years, 25% in childhood, youth and adulthood, and from age 65 will be reduced progressively.

Men dream about sex

Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor


Credit: Phase4Photography | Shutterstock

No surprise here, men are more likely than women to dream about sex. And comparing notes in the morning may not be a turn on for either guys or gals, as women are more likely to have experienced nightmares, according to doctoral research reported in 2009 by psychologist Jennie Parker of the University of the West of England.

More Than 8 Million Americans Sleepwalk, Surprising Scientists

By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer | LiveScience.com

Adult sleepwalkers are more common than previously realized, with upward of 8 million American adults prone to nighttime ambulation, a new study finds.

In fact, about 3.6 percent of U.S. adults have walked in their sleep at least once in the previous year, researchers report Monday (May 14) in the journal Neurology. One percent experienced at least two episodes of sleepwalking per month.

Ask a Scientist: Should I Sleep in a Bra?

If you don't want to throw them over your shoulder like a continental soldier...

Shutterstock

The Scientist: Arthur Perry, M.D., YouBeauty Cosmetic Surgery Expert

The Answer: If you don’t want the girls to sag, then you’ll have to tuck them up before you tuck yourself in. It’s sad but true: Sleeping sans bra is the major cause of breast droop.

Dreams can take the edge off

Credit: Dreamstime

Taking the edge off may require, not a stiff drink, but a trip to la-la land. UC Berkeley scientists report in the Nov. 23, 2011, issue of the journal Current Biology that during the dream phase of sleep (also called REM sleep), participants' brains showed decreased levels of certain chemicals associated with stress.

"We know that during REM sleep there is a sharp decrease in levels of norepinephrine, a brain chemical associated with stress," study researcher Matthew Walker, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience, said in a statement. "By reprocessing previous emotional experiences in this neuro-chemically safe environment of low norepinephrine during REM sleep, we wake up the next day, and those experiences have been softened in their emotional strength. We feel better about them, we feel we can cope."

You can control your dreams

If you're interested in lucid dreaming, you may want to take up video gaming. Both represent alternate realities, according to Jayne Gackenbach, a psychologist at Grant MacEwan University in Canada. Of course they aren't completely the same. While video games are controlled by computers and gaming consoles, dreams arise from the human mind.

"If you're spending hours a day in a virtual reality, if nothing else it's practice," Gackenbach told LiveScience in 2010. "Gamers are used to controlling their game environments, so that can translate into dreams." Her past research has shown that people who frequently play video games are more likely than non-gamers to have lucid dreams where they view themselves from outside their bodies; they also were better able to influence their dream worlds, as if controlling a video-game character.

Men dream about sex

No surprise here, men are more likely than women to dream about sex. And comparing notes in the morning may not be a turn on for either guys or gals, as women are more likely to have experienced nightmares, according to doctoral research reported in 2009 by psychologist Jennie Parker of the University of the West of England.

In her study of nearly 200 men and women, ages 18 to 25, Parker found that women's nightmares could be broadly divided into three categories: fearful dreams (being chased or life threatened), dreams involving the loss of a loved one, or confused dreams.

"If women are asked to report the most significant dream they ever had, they are more likely than men to report a very disturbing nightmare," Parker said. "Women reported more nightmares, and their nightmares were more emotionally intense than men's." 

Dreams help us solve puzzles

Scientists have long wondered why we dream, with answers ranging from Sigmund Freud's idea that dreams fulfill our wishes to the speculation that these wistful journeys are just a side rapid-eye-movement, or REM, sleep. 

Turns out, at least part of the reason may be critical thinking, according to Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett who presented her theory in 2010 at the Association for Psychological Science meeting in Boston. She has found that our slumbering hours may help us solve puzzles that have plagued us during daylight hours.

According to Barrett, it's the visual and often illogical aspects of dreams that make them perfect for out-of-the-box thinking that is necessary to solve some problems.

Night owls have more nightmares

Credit: Jeff Thrower | Shutterstock

Staying up late has its perks (as long as you can hit the snooze button the next morning), but light dreams is not one of them. Research published in 2011 in the journal Sleep and Biological Rhythms, revealed that night owls are more likely than their early-bird counterparts to experience nightmares.

In the study 264 university students rated how often they experienced nightmares on a scale from "0," (meaning "never") to "4" (meaning "always"). The stay-up-late types scored, on average, a 2.10, compared with the morning types who averaged a 1.23. The researchers said the difference was a significant one, however, they aren’t sure what's causing a link between sleep habits and nightmares. 

7 Mind-Bending Facts About Dreams

Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor

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Credit: Stockxpert

Dream Scape

You are getting sleepy, very sleepy. When your head hits the pillow it’s lights out for the brain and body, right? Not if you consider the brain cells that must fire to produce the sometimes vivid and sometimes downright haunted dreams that take place during the rapid-eye-movement stage of your sleep. Why do some people have nightmares while others really spend their nights in bliss? Like sleep, dreams are mysterious phenomena. But as scientists are able to probe deeper into our minds, they are finding some of those answers. Here's some of what we know about what goes on in dream land.

http://www.livescience.com/17290-facts-dreams-nightmares.html