梦的本质
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The Stuff of Dreams
区分观点、依据、例子与限制，用自己的话准确重建论述。
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第1段
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. 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. "Rest", in terms of muscle relaxation and so on, can be achieved by a brief period lying, or even sitting down. The body's tissues are self-repairing and self-restoring to a degree, and function best when more or less continuously active. In fact a basic amount of movement occurs during sleep which is specifically concerned with preventing muscle inactivity.
很明显，睡眠一定有某种作用。睡眠所占时间甚多，其作用似乎还不小。人们对睡眠作用的猜测，确实已经持续了数千年。一项使人对这个问题感到困惑的奇怪发现是，睡眠看上去很有可能并不仅仅是让身体得到休息。 只看放松肌肉等方面，只需躺一会儿，甚至坐一会儿就能得以 “休息”。人体组织可在一定程度上自我修补和自我恢复，或多或少有些连续活动时，人体组织发挥最佳。实际上，睡眠状态下仍存在一定量的机体活动，以防止肌肉停止活动。
第2段
If it is not a question of resting the body, then perhaps it is the brain that needs resting? This might be a plausible hypothesis were it not for two factors. 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. The second factor is more interesting and more fundamental. Some years ago an American psychiatrist named William Dement published experiments dealing with the recording of eye-movements during sleep. 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. People woken during these periods of eye-movements generally reported that they had been dreaming. When woken at other times they reported no dreams. 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. The implications of all this were that it was not the disturbance of sleep that mattered, but the disturbance of dreaming.
睡眠如果不在于休息身体，那么也许在于休息大脑？ 若不是下面两个因素，这个假说倒是颇有道理。一个因素是，脑电图记录仪（是一种简单的将电极接到头皮上以记录脑电波活动的仪器）显示，人在睡眠时大脑活动的方式会发生变化，但没有迹象表明，其活动总量会有任何减少。另一因素更有意思，也更根本。前些年，美国一位叫威廉·德门特的精神病学者发表了一篇研究报告，记录了眼球在睡眠时的活动情况。他指出，正常人的睡眠周期中不时伴有一阵阵奇怪的眼球活动，这些活动有的飘忽而缓慢， 有的急剧而迅速。在这些眼球活动期间被叫醒的人，通常都报告说自己刚才在做梦 ；在其它期间，则没有做梦。如果两组人对比，一组人连续几夜在快速眼动状态时被叫醒；另一组人也是连续几夜被叫醒，不过叫醒时眼球没有活动。结果，第一组人开始出现性格失调 ，而第二组人似乎没受多少影响。这一切意味着：重要的不是睡眠是否受干扰，而是做梦时受到干扰。
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