11.1: Introduction

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Sleep is not a uniform state of being. Instead, sleep is com- posed of several different stages that can be differentiated from one another by the patterns of brain wave activity that occur during each stage. These changes in brain wave activity can be visualized using EEG and are distinguished from one another by both the frequency and amplitude of brain waves (Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\)). Sleep can be divided into two different general phases: REM sleep and non-REM sleep. Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is characterized by darting movements of the eyes under closed eyelids. Brain waves during REM sleep appear very similar to brain waves during wakefulness. In contrast, non-REM (NREM) sleep is subdivided into four stages distinguished from each other and from wakefulness by characteristic patterns of brain waves. The first four stages of sleep are NREM sleep, while the fifth and final stage of sleep is REM sleep. In this section, we will discuss each of these stages of sleep and their associated patterns of brain wave activity.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Brainwave activity changes dramatically across the different stages of sleep. [“This work, “sleeping,” is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by OpenStax. It is a derivative of “Perchance” by Ryan Vaarsi/ Flickr, which is licensed under CC BY 2.0.]