Evidence Against the Defensive Activation Theory of REM Sleep

Abstract

David Eagleman and DA Vaughn have recently posited a very interesting new hypothesis of the 1​ function of REM sleep and dreaming​ . They posit that REM sleep is there to keep the visual cortex active during the dark hours of night to prevent the neuroplasticity that happens during darkness, making the visual cortex responsive to non-visual stimuli. Here, we make predictions to test the theory and show that the evidence examined does not lend support to the aforementioned theory. In particular, the fact that blind species show REM sleep comparable to that of their vident counterparts suggests the role of REM sleep is not specific to vision.