What purpose does eye movement serve during REM-sleep?
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It’s more of a response to REM.
During REM sleep, the visual cortex of the brain is “awake,” just as it would be during an awake state.
Sleep researchers believe that the eyes may be working to focus on an
area “seen” in a dream, but more research needs to be done in this area.
People who are blind experience REM sleep the same as people without
visual disabilities.
Some researchers believe that REM sleep doesn’t actually correlate with dreaming,
rather, the eye movements experienced during REM sleep have to do with
the brain’s memory processing. Others believe that the eyes are
“exercising” during this time, toning the muscles that are used to move
the eyes during the day.
I’ll try to keep it simple.
Animals sleep at night to repair their bodies and to conserve energy.
An evolutionary response was to “dream” during this sleep process.
Dreaming is used to sort through memories and to “simulate” potential situations which you may encounter in real life.
In order for your brain to “play the video game of a dream” it needs to move it’s body virtually, without physically moving, hence animals have adapted to self paralyze themselves while dreaming. Coincidentally, there is not drawback to eyes moving while dreaming (no potential danger) so that’s why they move so freely.
During dreams, eye movement (proved by lucid dreamer Stephen Laberge) mimic the exact same eye movement in real life.
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