Conclusion to this point

So I was reflecting on everything that I have written about over the past few weeks and it's become apparent that one topic can easily branch itself into many different things, seen in going from the optokinetic and vestibulo-ocular reflex to nystagmus to psychology and sleep. To this point, though, I think I can say with certainty that the extension of my research has been successful; I have developed a better understanding of how the reflexes I studied relate to many other fields of interest to me and others.

The title is labeled "to this point" because I fully intend to continue pursuing these particular fields of study, and recent inquiry has reignited my desire to learn more about lucid dreaming and REM sleep. I also very interested in following nystagmus and how it relates to diseases, in addition to continuing along the track of learning more about the optokinetic and vestibulo-ocular reflexes, as was the initial motivation behind this project.

I have also enjoyed the opportunity itself to pursue developing a train of thought in an extended manner through this blog, and the posts, which I believe have built well off one another. All in all, it's been quite interesting to this point, and hopefully it becomes more so over time.

Sleep and Nystagmus

I saw a recent comment about the effect of sleep deprivation on nystagmus, and I think that's definitely something to consider seeing how REM sleep involves random movements that may be related to the random saccadic movements undertaken in order to form an image during the vision process. I decided to dedicate a post to this because I think it's really an interesting extension of everything I've been talking about over the previous few weeks.

I have a friend who is currently following a polyphasic sleep schedule, and I spoke to him about whether there could be a relation. He is getting about four hours of sleep every 24 hours, but it doesn't seem to have shown anything related to nystagmus or optokinetic movements. He has cited various cases in which his eyes have hurt after waking from a nap, but I don't think any conclusions can be drawn. I think the reason for this is that we really don't know much about sleep. If the random movements in REM sleep could be somehow linked to the random movements when seeing on a normal basis, the "random" movements in REM sleep may not truly be so random.

Oddly enough, when I began the research process I looked heavily into several psychology-related topics pertaining to sleep including lucid dreaming, hypnopedia, and more, and I find it nicely-related to be able to talk about sleep in relation to the topic I ended up choosing, which was obviously that of visual reflexes.