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Sleep and Dreams Research Paper
Cynthia Gavilanes
University of Central Florida
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Abstract
On June 25th I went to Walmart to get myself two notebooks. I got one notebook which I
decorated myself, I covered the notebook with a thin fabric, I titled the notebook as “Cynthia’s
dream data” with a permanent marker, I created a boarder with washi tape, finally I covered the
book with gems, duct tape and texture to give it some more Cynthia flavor. My second notebook
I covered it with construction paper, as for this notebook I titled it “Cynthia’s sleep data”, for a
pop of color I painted the notebook with a neon green (my favorite color) with my nail polish, I
added some artificial flowers and stickers for a personal touch, and then I doodled in the open
spaces to finish my collage. Both these two journals were placed beside my bed on my night
stand, so that every night and every morning I record my sleeping and dream habits. Little did I
know when I first started decorating my journals that today that those two extremely cute
decorated journals will teach me so much more about myself and leave a huge impact on me.
In my sleep data journal, I recorded my sleep schedule. I tracked every day for a month
the amount of sleep I had every night and I rated on a scaled from 1-10 the quality of my sleep
for every night, 10 being the best sleep and therefore 1 being the worst. I collected everything,
from the time I lay in bed till the time I woke up. Now, collecting data for my dream journal is
where it got interesting. In my dream data journal every night you had to record your dreams and
write what you dreamt of from beginning to end, then you had to write about what was going on
with your life. If you did not remember your dream you would have to write down your first
thoughts and your emotional estate of wakening. These two notebooks were given to us as
assignments to make us want to remember, and letting us learn more about ourselves, and it was
a success I got to get to know myself in a different perspective.
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Introduction
The word sleep has variety of different meanings and definitions but no matter what the
outcome for sleep is always the same, that at some level sleep makes us feel better. Sleep is
something needed, Healthy sleep association (2007) explains the fact that sleep makes us feel
better and that going without sleep makes us feel worse only begins to explain why sleep might
be necessary. Then on the other hand, we have the word dream, dreams are not necessary but are
instead involuntarily. The purpose of dreams is not yet fully understood but is still being
researched to answer questions that are still unanswered on the full content of why humans
dream. I will be discussing my own experiences of sleep and dreams in this paper and telling you
the outcome of gathering all this recorded data.
Sleep Patterns
To me when I reread the title I typed above it made no sense. “Sleep patterns”, I do not
have a pattern in my sleep at all instead sleep for me was unstable, loose, shaky but most of all
unhealthy. Sleep patterns can be affected by many things, and unfortunately these are mine: My
lack of sleep is due to my lack of exercise, my stress levels sky high, my terrible eating patterns,
my no control of being easily distracted and my environmental conditions such as the
temperature in my household.
Exercise, stress and environmental conditions
Lately, I’ve been extremely busy not having time for myself therefore not being able to
exercise, not having time to eat healthy, and not having time to take care of my environmental
conditions. Without having time to do any of these things this results to me having terrible
sleeping methods, and awful sleeping patterns. Being regularly active and completing any type
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of physical activities daily leads to deepen sleep and leads to falling asleep faster. My bad eating
habits are sabotaging my sleep as well, for example eating chocolate before bed, drinking coffee
or tea before bed is not a good idea but if I steer far away from caffeine before night time that
can make a gigantic difference. In my room the AC barely works, the heat keeps me from falling
asleep. I start tossing and turning and throwing off all the blankets and clothes to try to feel a
little bit cool. Every morning when I’m finally able to sleep I wake up in a puddle of sweat. My
shortage of sleep is damaging me physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Stress
When I’m stressed my mind is racing with thoughts instead of shutting down at night. I
then tend to have a difficult time concentrating, I have a persistent headache that just won’t leave
