DO we?

Probbly, go ask someone who has been in a coma. And probbly for the same reason we dream while we sleep.

Some people who have been in comas actualy claim to have been able to receive some sensory input. Just like if you hear a noise you can incorporate it into a dream.

Though I'm not 100% sure, I beleive the answer is yes.

I thought that a coma was when your brain totally shuts down its non essential functions. Therefore, on a primal level, you would be able to detect sound, light and pain- purely because your body has those senses hardwired to actually keep you safe (on a primal level). As to dreaming- i doubt it. Dreaming has no real cause (or at least scientists can't conclude why we dream) but the generally accepted theory is that we dream to help us relax and to help put ourselves into a calm mindset. With that theory in mind i believe that you wouldn't dream in a coma because your brain (again on a primal level) will be trying its best to collect as much input as it could so it can try to work out what the hell is going on and why it can't engage its higher functions (communication, movement etc).

-Chunk

From what i've known, I though coma to only be a sleep of undetermined length. Lets ask DICTIONARY.COM!
------------------------------------------
Coma adj n. pl. co�mae
A state of deep, often prolonged unconsciousness, usually the result of injury, disease, or poison, in which an individual is incapable of sensing or responding to external stimuli and internal needs.
---------------------------------
that was the medical definition, the others are only out of interest. I didnt know coma ment all these things:

1. Astronomy. The nebulous luminescent cloud containing the nucleus and constituting the major portion of the head of a comet.

2. Botany. A usually terminal tuft or cluster, especially a tuft of hairs on a seed, as on a willow or milkseed.

3. Physics. A diffuse, comet-shaped image of a point source of light or radiation caused by aberration in the optical system.


[This message has been edited by SpaceFalcon2001 (edited 01-04-2003).]

i believe you dream becuase your in a very deep subconsious, now...if you know your dreaming or not, i really dont know.becuase at the time of dreaming..no one really knows they're dreaming unless they have the skill of lucid dreams, being able to control ones dreams.then yea...but...you have to dream.becuase when you sleep you go into deeper levels of sub consious, and coma is just a very deep one.

It probably depends on the person. A freind of mine had a freind who was injured while skiing and was in a coma for about a month. When she came out of it, she said that it was weird going from cold to hot all of a sudden. Presumably, she had no sensory input or dreaming activity during the coma. However, this does not preclude the possibility of others dreaming in comas. Perhaps the dreams would be severly distorted, working as a 'system check' to see if the brain had repaired itself correctly. Only one way to find out, and I'm not volunteering.

quote:

---

From what i've known, I though coma to only be a sleep of undetermined length. Lets ask DICTIONARY.COM!
------------------------------------------
Coma adj n. pl. co�mae
A state of deep, often prolonged unconsciousness, usually the result of injury, disease, or poison, in which an individual is incapable of sensing or responding to external stimuli and internal needs.

---

And isn't sleep only a semi-loss of conciousness?

NGNeer, she said that it was strange going from "cold to hot". That only proves that your brain can interpret sensory input whilst in a coma and that hasn't got alot to do with dreaming.

Just a couple of pointa which throw the whole "dreaming in a coma" issue into un-answerabilty:

1) You don't always remember your dreams, people who lucid dream start off by reckonising there dreams. They sub conciously tell themselves to wake up after the've dreamt to write down what happened and they then go back to sleep. In the morning they don't remember their dreams, or even waking up, but they have written proof of their dreams. So even if someone had a dream whilst in a coma they might not remember it, let alone that fact that they probably have brain damage and possible perminant memory loss.

2) Again using infomation about lucid dreaming and also that from sleep/dream clinics it has been found that dreams don't happen in real time. Its been proven (again by the waking up and writing down thing) that dreams that seem to have taken anything up to an hour have only lasted minutes or, in some cases, seconds in our time. Therefore it is possible that if a person claims to have dreamt whilst in a coma its possible that they dreamt the dream in the few seconds whilst the eventually regained conciousness.

I know that these points may disprove my above theory under certain lights- i thought that it may be important to state them.

-Chunk

edit- grrrr, i keep putting /quote in the first quote tag, grrrr!

[This message has been edited by Chunkmiester (edited 01-05-2003).]

I doubt it, the only time you dream is during "REM" sleep, which is very light. That is why you often wake up during dreams. Comas involve very deep unconciousness, so you cannot reach the REM state, hence no dreams.

VERy good last point,
But while in coma if our body is in a state of minimal physical activity it would seem logical that there would bea form of mental activity, thus maybe dreams

Perhaps I did not make myself clear. Her sensations were cold (ski slope) and then hot (hospital room). It was insant. She had no knowledge of movement, or a gradual change. To her, it was as though she was instantaneously transported from the slopes to the hospital. She wasn't aware of the change until she came out of the coma.

Sorry NGNeer, my mistake. The only thing that i have got to say, about your friend being in a coma and having the instant cold to hot sensation, is that comas happen because of severe brain trauma- therefore it is possible that some people receive damage to their sensory interpretation cells (ie your friend) and some people may take damage to their memory cells etc. I'm no doctor, but it seems reasonable that each trauma that results in a coma would be fairly unique (considering the complexity of the human brain) and therefore practically every person who has been in a coma could well have had different experiances and different damage.

Sorry that my post seemed to ramble on a bit.

-Chunk

I don't think this question has an answer, because it depends on what you mean by "dream."

Yes it has an anwser. and if u dont know what a dream is u must be thekind of really clueless persons that walk this earth.