Signals

SIGNALS December 2013

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Dream Recall and Quiz pg. 4 Single parent?

Child obesity could become a part of your child’s life Gender Roles Schizophrenia as a Society Are you a women and are having a lot of nightmares?

Pg. 8 for more details

Editors Letter Each and every one of us as human beings is influenced by countless factors every day of our lives. We may not know it, but what we do and how we do it serves as a great impact on our ideologies, views, and overall outlook and attitude. Throughout this magazine you will be exposed to concepts and explanations that will open you up to new ideas on why things are the way they are. Our articles context will range from subconscious issues on dreams and disorders, to health problems concerning weight.

In this issue our editors will cover the complex aspect of dreams providing you with a variety of information and explanations of popular questions concerning dreams. Do men and women dream differently? Does one gender recall their dreams better than the other? Our articles will also cover our populations growing problem of obesity and what the factors are that influence this growing rate. Also we will provide in depth information on schizophrenia and what some possible beneficial medications might be. In this range of topics we hope to create a positive influence that may spark your interest in the overall Signals that you are exposed to each and every day.

Dan Demler, Sarah Kuczkowski, Courtney Schauer, Andrew McWilliams, Sydney Hagen

By: Sarah Kuczkowski

Recall means to bring a fact, event, or situation back into one’s mind, similar to telling a story. Frequency is the rate at which something occurs or is repeated over a period of time. Everyone dreams almost every night, but does everyone remember it? Men and women relate to dreams in very different ways. Women tend to be more interested in their dreams and why they happen. They are not afraid to share them.

Women recall their dreams more often than men do. Schredl and Reinhard conducted a study of about 45,000 people it, was evident that women recall their dreams more often than men. I do not know if this is true; however, I can usually remember my dreams fairly well, being a women. I typically only remember them for a few hours, unless I talk about it right away. Obviously men and women are made up differently. According to Patrick McNamara, a professor at Boston University, because of our different biology’s, dream recall and content differ if you are a male versus female.

“Women are more interested in their dreams because they have a higher interest in what happened in them, making them more reliable than men to share them,” stated Amy Blume, a psychologist in California. Therefore, men have a lower recall frequency because they care less about their dreams. I find this biased because I know there are many men who want to share what happened in their dreams and many women that are humiliated about their dream.

Blume also added the fact that men do have an opportunity to possibly increase their dream recall frequency. Going to a therapist can help them to better recall their dreams.

How, might you ask? By letting them journal, which increases the chance of dream images resurfacing their mind upon awakening. In addition, a tape recorder set alongside the male’s bedside table is a great way to aide in the recall of their dreams.

If you want to prove this theory of women recalling their dreams more often than men do for yourself, conduct your own study. Keep a journal about what your dream was frequently about. Focus on memory, sleep behavior, stress, and creativity. If you find yourself waking up during the night, the chances of remembering your dream increases.

This is why studies show women having a greater frequency; because they tend to wake up more often than men do during the night. The next pattern could be your interest and attitude towards your dreams. With having a positive attitude, your recall of dreams

Below is a quiz that questions how you sleep at night and your interest and recall in dreams. Please answer honestly to determine the best results.

How many times do you wake up each night?

How is your ability on remembering your dreams and recalling them?

How much are you interested in what happens in your dreams?

On a scale from 1 time to 5 times

On a scale from 1, being hardly never, to 10, being every time I dream

On a scale from 1, being not at all, to 10, being extremely interested

Answer:

Answer:

Answer:

Overall results: This study, performed from a student at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, was done at an early date with the involvement of 32 male and females who go to that college. If you are a female and answer high for question number one, it proves the studies and findings that were stated above, but there isn’t a huge difference like researchers predicted. About 25% of females wake up either four or five times a night with 20% of males doing the same.

Question number two involved the ability to remember your dreams and how often you can recall them. For males, they tend to choose a number less than five on this question. In a previous study of these questions, only about 50% of men could remember what they dreamt about the previous night. But the results of the women was surprising to most. Only 60% of them could remember their dream from the night before. Researchers made it seem that women were way more likely to remember and recall their dreams, but this study shows a small difference between genders. See where you fall along: either the researcher’s beliefs or the previous study in a local college classroom?

The final question of how much you are interested in your dreams, came back with a very high difference between the sexes. If you are a male and voted high, you aren’t alone. Only 50% of males can remember their dreams and about 80% of women can. Such a significant difference leads me to think that

Childhood Obesity: A Growing Problem The building concern of obesity in America is becoming more pressing as obesity rates continue to increase in Americans of all ages. The fad and easy access to fast food is easily blamed for the excessively high obesity rate, but the factors that cause Americans to rely so heavily on fast food is an issue that first needs to be understood. Thirty-one percent of children raised by a single parent are deemed obese, versus 17% of children raised in a family with both parents.

Rice University’s study on the link between parent relations and childhood obesity provided accurate data based off of a large sample of nearly 10,000 Americans of various demographics. Obese children have a 70% chance of being obese or overweight as an adult, with that percentage increasing to 80% if a parental figure is also overweight. By beginning to understand the complexity of childhood obesity, we, as Americans, can make necessary changes to stop the childhood obesity rate from rising, and we can start to lower the rate that it is currently at.

However, despite health challenges, such as high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes, all well known and linked to obesity, research has been lacking on the contributing factors for childhood obesity.

Although this correlation between single parent families and an increased percentage of childhood obesity does exist, proven by Rice University, it is important to understand what the cause of this correlation is.

General data about the childhood obesity rate tends to suggest that single parents are actually the cause of childhood obesity, which is why children raised by a single parent have a higher obesity rate.

However, this is a presumptuous conclusion to draw.

Busy families rely more heavily on fast food for their meals, which in turn creates a higher obesity rate for these families. Both dual parent and single parent families can be equally as busy, but you will find that single parent households are more often busier, hence a greater reliance on fast food.

The supposed greatest contributing factor of childhood obesity is the socioeconomic standing of the family. “Fast Food Families: Childhood Obesity Differences in Single-Father and Single-Mother Families,” explains research backed data of these differences found between single mothers and single fathers. This article was authored by Jenifer Turchi and Mary Noonan both professors of sociology at the University of Iowa. Turchi and Noonan explain that, overall, single men make more money than single women. Therefore, single fathers’ income is higher than single women, making the obesity rate of children raised by single fathers lower than those raised by single mothers. But what puts the blame on single mothers for the increase in childhood obesity?

By: Sydney Hagen

A look back in history can begin to show why women are put to blame.

When the work force began to shift from purely male dominated to women inter-mixed with the men in the 1950’s, the demands of the household continued to weigh primarily on the women.

When you put two and two together, the nation’s struggles with obesity, especially in children, start to make sense. Since the 1950’s, women have spent less time at home and more time at work. Between 1950 and 1999, the rate of women in the workforce grew from 33 percent to 61 percent.

It’s interesting that at the same time, when large numbers of women left the house and went to work, childhood obesity rates began to climb.

Since the 1960’s, obesity rates among children across the country have nearly tripled. The correlation between mothers working out of the house and the increased childhood obesity rate does prove that working mothers are considerably to blame.

Although working mothers may seem to be blamed on the surface level, working mothers consist of both single mothers and married mothers. It just happens to be, that single mothers are solely responsible for providing income and nurturing the family, whereas married mothers have two sources of income as well as two people to split the duties of the family between. Despite the fact that women, in most families, are naturally deemed as the caregiver, having the tasks of the family dealt between two people makes each task list more reasonable.

Single mothers have significantly less time and money in comparison to two-parent families and time and money are necessary to buy and prepare healthy home-cooked meals and to play with children or facilitate participation in physical activity. Both of these factors are directly linked to obesity.

The reasons behind this correlation are factors that can also be found in both single parent and dual-parent families. Single parents tend to work more than parents who have two sources of income, making them rely heavier on fast food to provide quick meals. Although this is more common in single-parent families, there are many dual-parent families who rely just as heavily on fast food. Single fathers are a slight contradiction to basic statistics about the relationship between singleparent families and the childhood obesity rate. Children raised by single fathers tend to have a lower obesity rate compared to children raised both with a single mother and in a dual-parent household. This is because fathers generally make a higher income than single mothers.

The correlation between single parent families and childhood obesity is something that must be understood to fully comprehend the complexity of childhood obesity. This issue needs to be understood so we, as Americans can use our knowledge to lower the obesity rate in today’s

Over the past few decades, psychologists have been firm believers of the fact that there are differences between genders and their dream content. It has been clear that men have dreams that are more sexual and aggressive with the involvement of weapons and physical contact. Overall, men’s dreams typically occur in an outdoor setting that is not familiar to them. Likewise, the people that men dream of are not usually familiar to them either and mostly consist of strangers. Women’s dreams on the other hand, have been found to differ from those of men in a number of areas including physical surroundings, dream characters, and also dream recall frequency. Women tend to report their dreams occurring in an indoor setting usually consisting of their household. Also, women dream of both genders equally and are usually familiar with whom they dream of. Lastly, women tend to be able to recall and remember their dreams better than men.

But what is the reason for these differences, and what influences men and women to dream the way they do? Amy BLume-Marcovici, a psychological therapist from Cambridge, clearly stated reasoning for these differences in her article from the Dreaming journal, “Gender differences in dreams are not due to biological sex itself, but due to gender role expectations”. Therefore, a major factor that causes genders to dream differently is what they partake in during their everyday life role. The views, responsibilities, and overall role that each gender takes upon strongly influences dream content. For example, in a typical American family decades ago, the responsibility and role of the mother was to be a housewife and take care of the kids. They could take on a part time job as well, however, they worked from the confounds of their home. This role caused their everyday activity to occur within the walls of their home, which resulted in their tendency to dream of an indoor environment. Also, in this case the mother would be exposed to relatively the same group of people for most of the day, which resulted in the familiarity of their dream characters. The husband’s role on the other hand, was to provide for the family and take on a career outside of the home. This daily commuting resulted in the outdoor environment that was usually incorporated within their dream content. Considering the familiarity aspect, working with such a great deal of people is what caused male dream characters to be mostly strangers. These differences between

However, as the years went on the roles of males and females started to change.

Men were more acceptably taking on the role of a stay at home dad. Nowadays it is more common to see a husband taking care of the kids and staying home.

Whereas, women are now working outside of the house more often and taking on careers on a more consistent basis. Roles are changing and rapidly, men and women are taking on equal activity inside and outside of the household resulting in a leveling of ideologies. This is because one gender is exposed to the same aspects as the other gender and they both are affected by the same influences.

Just as PhD professor Krisanne Bursik stated in her article from Sex Roles journal, “As increased numbers of men and women blend traditional female role elements such as child rearing with traditional male role elements such as wage earner, gender differences in dreams begins to decrease�. Therefore, the responsibilities of men and women are changing and consequently as a result, so are their dream contents.

Working mothers who are beginning to merge their family role with an occupational role, a pattern more traditional for men, are experiencing a decrease in their levels of traditionally female dream content. They now are taking on the activities previously conducted by the males resulting in their changing dream content. They are seen to start dreaming of more outdoor settings and also more aggressive content. This means that not only did the male responsibilities transfer, but the male views and ideologies did as well. For the stay at home fathers their dream content and characters are becoming more familiarized just as the females were when they were in charge of the household. Like the responsibilities of the females, the responsibilities of the males are transforming as well, resulting in a change of ideas and outlook.

Therefore, men and women who share similar waking roles and conscious activity are likely to experience similar subconscious content throughout their lives and within their dreams. Men and women are starting to take on the same roles, resulting in their dream content becoming more similar. This is because they are developing similar ideologies, views, and responsibilities within their everyday lives.

With the gender differences in dream content lessoning and the gender similarity of responsibilities increasing, the idea that gender role plays an impact has become

How We See Schizophrenia as a Society By: Andrew McWilliams

Asylum asylums have always been associated with being dark, scary, and extremely creepy. Have you ever wondered if a character in a certain film is being accurately depicted? Would dancer Nina from “Black Swan” truly act the way she does in the movie if she had that disorder in real life? Would historic mathematician John Nash actually act the way he does in the movie “A Beautiful Mind”? The way that psychological disorders are portrayed in movies is highly inaccurate, most specifically schizophrenia. When you begin to dig into the details of this subject, it is easy to see how misconstrued these portrayals are.

For a long time media had been responsible for the public knowledge regarding a specific illness. However, in contemporary times, media has begun to pick and choose what they want you to see in order to create more wild and interesting depictions. It is no surprise that Hollywood would do this, but it has gotten so bad that the general population doesn’t know what to look for or expect when dealing with somebody with schizophrenia. This distortion of reality is rather unfortunate because it has caused an entire falsified world that surrounds those with the disorder. Creating unnecessary fears and stereotypes that can cause damaged relationships in society.

Specifically some of the biggest stereotypes that are most drastically distorted are things like race, gender, and symptoms. Typically in a particular film, you will likely see a Caucasian male that displays mainly negative symptoms like violence, rage, and hallucinations. These are all the commonalities in films, and in turn are all not the norm when it comes to those with schizophrenia. A study ran by Ph.D. Patricia Owen of Psychiatric Services found that indeed men do obtain the disorder at a younger age, and it tends to be more fatal. So seeing more males in these movies makes sense; however, another study surveyed movies with schizophrenic characters, and 90% of those characters were males.

This displays a clear stereotype. Within the realm of race, the same results have been drawn from studies, showing great misconceptions. What Hollywood really loves to take and run with, is violence. The vast majority of Hollywood films use violence as the driving force behind the main characters woes. It is used because no one wants to see a boring story of a common, often symptomfree schizophrenic. This observation also has lend itself to the negative psyche surrounding those with mental disorders.

I can speak through the tool of personal experience and observation, that those with mental disorders are not even near as scary, or unstable as the average person would believe them to be. A dear friend of mine that I had throughout high school Christian, had a brother that suffered from OCD/Schizophrenic symptoms. I had happened to have been visiting him at his house when his brother had a tantrum and washed his hands till they were nearly bloody. On top of that he exclaimed, “He told me to, he told me to.� His brother has had these mentally challenging symptoms for nearly ten years straight, and that is by far the most extreme episode he has had. That goes to show how subtle these problems can sometimes be, and how stable those with disorders can be. However, that does not mean some have a big problem with their disorders or symptoms.

Schizophrenia no doubt can be a very crippling disorder in somebodies life. Generally it will cause mental disturbances and disrupt general behavior, speech, and even thoughts. That being said, there is zero justification in the way that these people are portrayed in every aspect of the media. M.D. Margarita Tartakovsky has claimed that people diagnosed with schizophrenia are not as likely to be violent as another. She also proves the stigma that schizophrenics are criminals is false and that those without schizophrenia are even more likely to commit any type of crime. Her findings are a great beacon that the media is false in their representation.

As a whole, society has an extremely warped view of those with mental disorders, especially schizophrenia. Do you know someone with a mental disorder? Do you treat them like any other person? Through the use of better insight of those with mental disorders in the media and in films, the public too will began to change their opinion of those with these problems.

The Monster Under Your Bed By: Courtney Schauer Waking up screaming, maybe even crying in the middle of the night because of what?

That terrifying nightmare about the monster under your bed, at work, or school is causing the disturbance in your sleep. Nightmares occur during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep; one of the six sleeping cycles we go through each night. Everyone has nightmares; however, according to a few articles and studies, women recall and remember them more often than men. This must mean women have more nightmares than men, right?

According to an article in LiveScience, a science news website, women experience nightmares more often than men. One of the researchers, Parker, states that “women's nightmares can be broadly divided into three categories: fearful dreams (being chased or life threatened), losing a loved one or confused dreams.” Women’s nightmares can channel the emotions fear, sadness, and confusion. I can personally relate to this statement because I experience nightmares with all of these emotions. Though an article in LiveScience claims women have more nightmares, there are several researchers that studied the main differences in dreams between men and women. They discovered the amount of nightmares is not all that different between the genders.

Stanly Kripper, American psychologist, and Jan Weinhold, German psychologist, conducted a study on 608 Americans’ dream reports to analyze dreams and determine the differences in dreams between males and females. Data collected displays that more women have nightmares about being a victim and negative emotions, while men have more nightmares about a hardship, aggression, and failure. According to Krippner’s study, men experience more nightmares than women. "Typical Dreams: Stability and Gender Differences”, another study done to analyze the difference in dreams between genders shows the latter. Data collected by researchers Georgi, Markus, Michael Schredl, Josie Henley-Einion, and Mark Blagrove illustrates that more women experience nightmares including being chased, a loved one dying, being frozen with fright, failing an exam, losing control of a vehicle and violent animals. A few of the scenes feature losing control of objects or themselves and being over powered by animals or other people. Men, on the other hand, experienced nightmares about being tied up and unable to move, murdered, being locked up, physically attacked, and falling. The nightmares men experience more often include physical injury or pain as well as being over powered by other people. After counting the different types of nightmares experienced by each sex, women can experience only one more scene than men, according the study.

Researchers in the United Kingdom performed a study on childhood dream recall differences between genders. Their results provide insight on reasons behind why women may experience more nightmares than men.

Researchers from Swansea University in the UK studied the recall frequency in adolescent children and found that more girls reported having nightmares than boys.

They suggest that insomnia, depression, and “childhood sexual abuse is related to heightened nightmare frequency in adult women.� This can be a frightening suggestion to parents of children experiencing nightmares. Thankfully, Alan Siegel, Ph.D., studied nightmares in children and found that having nightmares at a young age is common. Siegel suggests that children are able to experience nightmares as soon as they are able to speak and that they slowly disappear as children age and learn how to cope with fears. Though factors such as age, abuse, and depression may positively correlate with nightmare frequency, they are not the only causes for nightmares. Similar to dreams, nightmares are closely related to our everyday life and activity.

In times of distress or unpleasant events, people tend to experience more nightmares than usual. According to Mayo Clinic’s health information on nightmares, there are a wide variety of elements that can cause nightmares including stress, trauma, sickness, medication, substance abuse, and frightening books and films. Stress can be caused by a variety of events in every day life, large or small. Some experience stress when dealing with issues in the school, work, or home environment. Death of a loved one is known to be a cause for stress as well as trauma, which occurs when there is a disaster or harm done to the dreamer or their loved ones. Those who experience post-traumatic stress disorder experience a heightened frequency of nightmares than people who do not. Along with stress and trauma, medications also contribute to common nightmares. According to the International Association for the Study of Dreams, those who are taking certain medications or experiencing withdrawal tend to experience more nightmares. The majority of researchers can agree that nightmares consist of scenes featuring death of a loved one, being chased, feeling unsure or frightened, and losing power or control.

Nightmares are a normal experience for everyone in certain stages and times of their life. Though they are rather unpleasant, they show us what we fear and need to overcome. As we age, nightmares become less frequent as we learn to surpass our fears in life; instead of literally featuring a monster under our beds, they present us with our bosses, professors, or in-laws. Some researchers claim that women experience more nightmares than men. The data to support these suggestions is not impressive because there is such little information about the topic. The question still remains; do women experience more nightmares than men? It seems as though we may never know.

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A look inside the brain and its tendencies, from a psychological standpoint.