Apparently, in a healthy brain the nerve to muscle path is cut off during REM sleep(rapid eye movement) when dreams occur and as a result, AYPWH (all you people with a healthy brain) are in effect paralyzed. For people with REM sleep disorder this paralysis does not occur leading to people shouting, kicking, sitting up and punching as they experience violent dreams. The researchers in Toronto estimate that 75% of people with RBD will eventually develop brain disorders such as Parkinson's.
I don't remember having violent dreams before I was diagnosed and I haven't read the Toronto study, but something tells me they have jumped to a conclusion that is not particularly supportable. Having said that, they may be right for certainly those of us with PD experience violent dreams and we have a tendency to act them out. For example, the night before last, or was it last night, I sat right up in bed and started making shooting noises. My wife woke me, again with the same question, (Are you OK?) to which I responded all was copacetic, I was just dreaming about shooting at Buddy Holly's (or was it Glen Campbell's) backup singer, trying to kill her before she killed me.
Now I don't know if either Buddy or Glen have a female backup or why I would want to kill her, or her me, but the dream was my reality for the few seconds it took to sit up and shoot. Luckily we don't keep guns in our house.
Before she went back to sleep, my wife, half jokingly said she might have to sleep in another room with the door locked for her own saftey.
Sleep is such an odd thing and dreaming even odder.
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