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Published online 15 November 2007 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2007.253
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Sleeping brain plays back events in fast-forward
Rat study shows long-term memory formation at work.
Research on slumbering rats has shed light on how the brain processes its recent experiences into long-term memories. The experiment suggests that the brain creates such memories by 'playing back' the day's events several times faster than they actually happened.
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Ahhhh, then this may be why in a short nap I can "experience" much longer spans of time, through long term memory storage. It doesn't explain why in my dreams I can fly and read closed books, have take tests in school that I haven't studied for, or talk with animals.
Is there a difference in the pattern of long-term memory storage between pleasant and unpleasant experiences? If yes, is there a possible evolutionary advantage of doing so?
It means that also brain needs to sleep. Robert Opala
If I fall out of bed in the middle of a dream, the event is incorporated in the dream I remember when I wake up immediately afterwards. Even events leading up to the fall are there in the dream. The only explanation is that the events leading up to the fall were invented by the brain in the split-second between falling and waking up, even though in the dream-memory they seemed to occur over a much longer period. So the results of this paper confirm what we know from everyday experience.