Explaining your brain activity while you’re dreaming [Video]

Neuroscientist and TED speaker Sarah Baldeo explains how dreaming occurs in the human brain on CTV Morning Live Edmonton.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Kent Morrison: Well, it’s something mostly everyone does every night, but rarely do we remember what happened, or understand what’s going on inside our minds. It is dreaming. Sarah, what exactly goes on in our brain when we’re dreaming?

Sarah Baldeo: The interesting thing is, a lot of people think they fall asleep and they start dreaming right away. This is not what happens. Dreams only occur in one cycle of sleep, and that is the rapid eye movement cycle, or symptoms of the REM cycle. You’ve got to go through three stages of sleep before you even get to REM sleep, and then your brain activity starts to switch. There’s five key areas of your brain that are active during this period. The first is your brain stem, which actually paralyzes your muscles, …