Lesson 19

The stuff of dreams

It is fairly clear that the sleeping period must have some function, and because there is so much of it the function would seem to be important.
很明显，睡眠周期一定具有某种功能，而且由于它占用了大量时间，这种功能似乎非常重要。
Speculations about its nature have been going on for literally thousands of years, and one odd finding that makes the problem puzzling is that it looks very much as if sleeping is not simply a matter of giving the body a rest.
关于其本质的推测实际上已经持续了数千年，而一个使该问题变得令人困惑的奇怪发现是，睡眠看起来并不单纯是为了让身体休息。
Rest, in terms of muscle relaxation and so on, can be achieved by a brief period lying, or even sitting down.
休息，就肌肉放松等等而言，可以通过短暂的躺着甚至坐下的时间来实现。
The body's tissues are self-repairing and self-restoring to a degree, and function best when more or less continuously active.
身体的组织在一定程度上是自我修复且自我恢复的，并且在或多或少持续活跃时运作最好。
In fact a basic amount of movement occurs during sleep which is specifically concerned with preventing muscle inactivity.
事实上，在睡眠期间会发生基本数量的运动，这专门用于防止肌肉不活动。
If it is not a question of resting the body, then perhaps it is the brain that needs resting?
如果这不关乎身体的休息，那么也许需要休息的是大脑？
This might be a plausible hypothesis were it not for two factors.
如果不是因为两个因素，这可能是一个合理的假设。
First the electroencephalograph (which is simply a device for recording the electrical activity of the brain by attaching electrodes to the scalp) shows that while there is a change in the pattern of activity during sleep, there is no evidence that the total amount of activity is any less.
首先，脑电图仪（它只是一个通过将电极连接到头皮来记录大脑电活动的设备）显示出，虽然在睡眠期间活动模式发生了变化，但没有证据表明活动总量有任何减少。
The second factor is more interesting and more fundamental.
第二个因素更有趣且更根本。
Some years ago an American psychiatrist named William Dement published experiments dealing with the recording of eye-movements during sleep.
几年前，一位名叫威廉·德门特的美国精神病学家发表了关于睡眠期间眼球运动记录的实验。
He showed that the average individual's sleep cycle is punctuated with peculiar bursts of eye-movements, some drifting and slow, others jerky and rapid.
他展示了平均个人的睡眠周期被独特的眼球运动爆发所打断，其中一些是漂移且缓慢的，另一些则是抽动且快速的。
People woken during these periods of eye-movements generally reported that they had been dreaming.
在这些眼球运动期间被唤醒的人们普遍报告说他们一直在做梦。
When woken at other times they reported no dreams.
当在其他时间被唤醒时，他们报告没有梦。
If one group of people were disturbed from their eye-movement sleep for several nights on end, and another group were disturbed for an equal period of time but when they were not exhibiting eye-movements, the first group began to show some personality disorders while the others seemed more or less unaffected.
如果一组人连续几个晚上被干扰眼动睡眠，而另一组人在相同的时间段内被干扰，但干扰发生在他们没有表现出眼动时，第一组人开始表现出一些人格障碍，而其他人似乎或多或少未受影响。
The implications of all this were that it was not the disturbance of sleep that mattered, but the disturbance of dreaming.
这一切的含义并不是睡眠的干扰很重要，而是做梦的干扰。