A Study of the Neurophysiological Mechanisms of Dreaming
M. Jouvet and D. Jouvet Electroenceph. Clin. Neurophysiol. 1963 Suppl. 24
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Methods
Part 1

I. Two EEG patterns of physiological sleep in intact cats

II. The neural structures responsible for RPS

III. Structures responsible for somato-vegetative phenomena

IV. Mechanisms of the Rhombencephalic Phase of Sleep

V. Ontogenesis of the RPS
Part 2

A. Normal subjects

B. Patients with brain lesions

Discussion

Summary
Figures

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Dream activity can be detected only by the short memory of the dream. thus, any effort to delimit the neural structures responsible for such a mysterious phenomenon may appear very risky. Nevertheless, some recent data obtained on humans and animals may contribute to make such an effort less hazardous. Indeed, Kleitman and his collaborators have demonstrated the periodical appearance of a peculiar stage of sleep with low voltage EEG and rapid eye movements. The subjects, aroused during this stagc, remembered having dreamt in a great number of cases (Dement and Kleitman 1957a, b). ln cats, besides the slow cortical activity which is observed during physiological sleep (Rheinberger and Jasper 1937), the existence of fast cortical activity accompanied by rapid eye movements was recognized by Dement (1958). To the latter author, the fast activity stage of sleep in the cat represented an active phase of sleep (activated sleep) intermediate between deep sleep characterized by slow waves and the state of wakefulless. The electrical activity of the cortex and of the subcortical regions and the variations of somato-vegetative activity are so characteristic of the fast cortical activity stage of sleep that they make possible the study of the neural structures responsible for it (Jouvet and Michel 1958; Jouvet et al 1959b, 1960;Jouvet 1961, 1962). And the very surprising similarity between this stage of sleep in man and cat makes possible the correlation between a structural analysis in cat and the subjective data obtained in man.

We shall thus begin to enumerate some experimental facts obtained in cats which permit us to delimit a ponto-limbic system responsible for the fast cortical activity phase during sleep (Rhombencephalic Phase of Sleep, or RPS). Secondly, we will outline the striking similarities between the RPS and a stage of sleep observed in normal humans or in patients with brain lesions similar to experimental lesions carried out in cats. Finally, we shall discuss the relationship between this phase of sleep and dream activity.

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