Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry, 330 Brookline Avenue, E/FD861, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
Curr Biol. 2010 Dec 7;20(23):R1010-3. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2010.10.045.
The activities of the mind and brain never cease. Although many of our waking hours are spent processing sensory input and executing behavioral responses, moments of unoccupied rest free us to wander through thoughts of the past and future, create daydreams, and imagine fictitious scenarios. During sleep, when attention to sensory input is at a minimum, the mind continues to process information, using memory fragments to create the images, thoughts, and narratives that we commonly call 'dreaming'. Far from being a random or meaningless distraction, spontaneous cognition during states of sleep and resting wakefulness appears to serve important functions related to processing past memories and planning for the future. From single-cell recordings in rodents to behavioral studies in humans, recent studies in the neurosciences suggest a new conception of dreaming as part of a continuum of adaptive cognitive processing occurring across the full range of mind/brain states.
大脑和思维的活动从未停止。虽然我们醒着的大部分时间都在处理感官输入和执行行为反应，但在空闲的时刻，我们可以自由地思考过去和未来，产生白日梦，并想象虚构的场景。在睡眠中，当对感官输入的注意力降至最低时，大脑会继续处理信息，利用记忆片段来创造我们通常称之为“做梦”的图像、想法和叙述。自发认知在睡眠和静息觉醒状态下并非是一种随机或无意义的分心，它似乎与处理过去的记忆和为未来做计划等重要功能有关。从啮齿动物的单细胞记录到人类的行为研究，神经科学的最新研究表明，将做梦视为适应认知处理的连续体的一部分，这种处理发生在大脑状态的整个范围内，这是一种新的观念。
