Thread: The Importance of REM Atonia; Dog Runs in Sleep :D

Originally Posted by Thor

REM atonia.[1] When you fall asleep you first go into non-REM sleep stages. In these sleep stages the tone (tension) of your skeletal muscles is reduced, that is, you become physically relaxed. You can still move, even though movements may be sluggish. For example, you can turn around in your sleep.

When you enter the REM stage, the skeletal muscles (except for the eye muscles and the diaphragm) become paralyzed. Since there is practically no muscle tone at all, this is called REM atonia. When you exit the REM stage, the muscles go back to the reduced muscle tone of non-REM sleep.

There are two ways that REM atonia could go wrong: it could be activated outside of REM sleep, or it could fail to be activated during REM sleep. The former type of failure results in a sleep disorder that I'll discuss in the next section. The latter type of failure is a more serious type of disorder called REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) that causes people to act out their dreams during REM sleep.[2]

Yea who knows, maybe it was NREM and he really was just sleep walking. But damn That's gotta hurt! Makes you appreciate the little things in life, like your nightly REM atonia sessions!!!