自考英语

睡觉，偶尔做做梦

So you awoke this morning in a miserable mood. Well, maybe your special dream character didn't put in an appearance last night, or maybe there just weren't enough people drifting through your dreams.

你今天早上醒来，情绪十分糟糕。唔，也许你特别的梦中人昨夜未曾入梦来，要么就可能是没有足够的人出现在你的梦中。

If that sounds like far-fetched fantasy, consider these interesting findings that have emerged from eight years of sleep and dream research at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio:

如果这些听起来像牵强的幻想，那么请考虑下面的这些发现，它们是俄亥俄州辛辛那提退伍军人管理医院对睡眠和梦所做的几年研究的结果。

While sleep affects how sleepy, friendly, aggressive, and unhappy we feel after awakening, feelings of happiness or unhappiness depend most strongly on our dreams.

睡眠影响着我们醒后的感觉：是否困倦，是否友好，是否爱找茬以及是否愉快，但是否幸福的感觉更大程度上取决于我们的梦境。

Each of us has a special dream character, a type of person whose appearance in our dreams makes us feel happier when we awake. What we dream at night isn't as important to how we feel in the morning as the number of people who appear in our dreams. The more people, the better we feel.

我们每个人都有一种特定的梦中人，他在梦中出现可以使我们醒后倍感幸福。对于清晨的感觉来说，梦到什么事不如梦见人的数量多少重要。梦中的人物越多，我们感觉就越好。

Our sleep influences our mood. Our mood, in turn, affects our performance. And throughout the day, our levels of mood and performance remain closely linked.

睡眠影响着我们的情绪。我们的情绪又影响着我们的行为。在一整天中，我们的情绪水平和行为水平保持着密切的联系。

During the past two decades, research has greatly expanded our knowledge about sleep and dreams. Scientists have identified various stages of sleep, and they have found that humans can function well on very little sleep, but only if they dream. Yet the true function of sleep and dreaming continues to elude precise explanation.

在过去的20年中，研究大大扩展了我们关于睡眠和梦的知识。科学家们已经确认了睡眠的各个阶段，他们发现人在睡眠很少的情况下机体仍能够很好运转，但只是在睡眠时做了梦才如此。然而对于睡眠和做梦的功能，仍不能作出准确的解释。

In 1970 Milton Kramer and Thomas Roth, researchers at the VA Hospital and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, respectively, raised this question: Do our moods in the morning relate in any way to our sleep and dreams the previous night?

1920年，退伍军人管理医院的弥尔顿?克莱默和辛辛那提大学医学院的托马斯?罗斯各自提出这一问题：我们早上的情绪和我们头天夜里的睡眠和做梦有没有联系呢?

Human experience suggests that they do. Certainly we generally feel better after a good night?sleep. But Drs. Kramer and Roth sought a much more definitive answer. And that answer, though still evolving, is a positive yes.

人们的经验会说，它们确实有联系。当然，在一夜的足睡之后，我们一般会感觉较好，但是克莱默和罗斯两位医生找到了一个更加明确的答案。尽管这个答案还在继续充实，但它是肯定的。

Kramer and Roth began by seeking to determine whether one's mood differs between night and morning, and whether this is related directly to sleep. They found that there is a difference, and it is definitely related to sleep. Then they explored the various aspects of mood and their relationship to the various stages of sleep and dreaming.

克莱默和罗斯开始这种研究时，是通过研究人们夜晚和早上的情绪是否有所不同，这种情绪是否和睡眠直接相关。他们发现情绪有差异，而且确实与睡眠有关，接着他们研究了情绪的各个方面，以及它们与睡眠和做梦的各个阶段的关系。

What does a good night's sleep mean to our mood? Generally we are happier, less aggressive, sleepier, and, a bit surprisingly, less friendly. Being sleepier is easily explained. It simply takes a little time to become fully alert after awakening.

一夜的足睡对我们的情绪意味着什么呢?一般来说，我们会更愉快，不那么有攻击性，更瞌睡，而且令人不解的是，还不那么友好。更瞌睡容易理解，它仅是醒后花点时间使自己清醒而已。

But why should we feel less friendly? Here the researchers must speculate a little. They suggest the answer may be the lack of association with other humans during the period of sleep.

但是为什么我们会感觉不那么友好呢?这里研究人员必须作点猜测，他们说可能和人们在睡眠时缺少与人交往有关。

Once the two doctors established scientifically what common sense and folk wisdom had long taught -- namely, that there is link between sleep and how we feel -- they set out to learn what parts of our mood are related to which specific parts of the sleep cycle.

两位医生一旦把常识和民间智慧长期教给人们的东西――即睡眠和我们的感觉之间有联系――科学地确定下来，他们就着手了解我们的情绪的什么部分与睡眠周期的哪些具体部分有关。

Normal sleep is broken into five distinct parts -- Stages 1 through 4, plus REM, an acronym for rapid eye movement. Much remains unknown about each of the five sleep stages. Most dreaming occurs during REM sleep, a period when the eyeballs move rapidly beneath the closed lids. And whether they remember or not, all adults dream, usually four to six times a night.

正常的睡眠被分为五个不同的阶段――从第一阶段到第四阶段,加上“REM”(“眼球快速活动”的缩写)。每一个阶段都有许多人们未知的东西,大部分的梦发生在REM睡眠期间,这一期间眼球在眼睑下快速运动。不论成年人是否记得，他们都通常一夜做梦4～6次。

Three types of mood are strongly related to some specific stage of sleep. Our friendly, aggressive, and sleepy feelings all relate to Stage 2 sleep, which accounts for most of our total sleep hours. Our friendly and sleepy feelings, but not our aggressive feelings, are affected as well by Stages 3 and 4, and by how long it takes us to fall asleep.

三种情绪和睡眠的某一阶段密切相关。我们友好的、有攻击性的、困倦的感觉都和睡眠的第二阶段相关，我们大部分的睡眠时间都处于第二阶段，我们友好的、困倦的、但不带有攻击性的感觉受到第三和第四阶段以及我们多久才能入睡的影响。

This means that if you get less sleep than normal ?and people vary a great deal in how much sleep they normally require -- you awake more friendly, more aggressive, and less sleepy.

这就意味着如果你比正常时睡得少――人们正常需要多少睡眠是有很大差别的――你醒后就会更友好，更有攻击性，少些困倦。

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