IELTS Research Reports

Anthony Green and Roger HawkeyAPPENDIX C: ITEM WRITER SUBMISSIONSNon-Experienced Group: VictoriaTextHow the Brain Turns Reality into DreamsDreams seem to make perfect sense as we are having them. Yet, on awakening they typically leaveus feeling befuddled; without any clear idea about their origins. Research, however, investigating thedreams of individuals with amnesia may provide some answers.Such research suggests that much of the fodder for our dreams comes from recent experiences. Forthis reason, scientists have tentatively supposed that the dreaming brain draws from its “declarativememory” system. This system stores newly learned information.The declarative memory stores the type of information that can be “declared” to be known by subjects;the name of one’s dog, for example. Often, subjects can even remember when or where they learnedsomething - for example, the day you discovered the harsh truth about Santa Claus. To differentiatethis information from declarative memory this particular of recollection is referred to by scientists asepisodic memory.It seems subjects who permanently suffer from amnesia or loss of memory are unable to add newdeclarative or episodic memories. The part of the brain involved in storing this type of information, aregion called the hippocampus, has been damaged. Although, subjects who suffer from memory lossare able to retain new information temporarily, they are unable to permanently retain it. Studies haveshown that new information for such individuals is lost sometimes within minutes.If such is the case, that dreams originate from declarative memories, then individuals suffering withamnesia should not be capable of dreaming at all. Current research directed by Robert Stickgold ofHarvard Medical School, however, suggests quite the opposite.Stickgold’s study shows that, much like individuals with normal memory, amnesiacs also replay recentexperiences whilst asleep. The only difference seems to be that the amnesiacs are unable to recognizewhat they are dreaming about.The methodology designed for Stickgold’s study had two groups of subjects playing several hours ofthe computer game Tetris, which requires users to direct falling blocks into the correct positions asthey reach the bottom of the screen. At night, the amnesiac group did not remember playing the gamebut, they did describe seeing falling, rotating blocks while they were falling asleep.A second group of players with normal memories reported seeing the same images.From these results, Stickgold’s research team felt reassured in making the claim that dreams comefrom the types of memory amnesiacs do have, defined as implicit memories. Such memories canbe measured even when individuals have no conscious awareness of them. One class of implicitmemories is found in the procedural memory system. This particular system stores information thatis used, but is somehow beyond the individuals’ ability to state how they know, to perform actions. Apertinent example being, when one rides a bicycle for the first time in years, a reliance on proceduralmemory has come into play.342 www.ielts.org