2013年自考英語(二)課文譯文:睡覺,偶爾做做夢

　　睡覺，偶爾做做夢

　　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.

　　你今天早上醒來，情緒十分糟糕。唔，也許你特別的夢中人昨夜未曾入夢來，要么就可能是沒有足夠的人出現(xiàn)在你的夢中。

　　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:

　　如果這些聽起來像牽強的幻想，那么請考慮下面的這些發(fā)現(xiàn)，它們是俄亥俄州辛辛那提退伍軍人管理醫(yī)院對睡眠和夢所做的幾年研究的結(jié)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.

　　睡眠影響著我們醒后的感覺：是否困倦，是否友好，是否愛找茬以及是否愉快，但是否幸福的感覺更大程度上取決于我們的夢境。

　　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.

　　我們每個人都有一種特定的夢中人，他在夢中出現(xiàn)可以使我們醒后倍感幸福。對于清晨的感覺來說，夢到什么事不如夢見人的數(shù)量多少重要。夢中的人物越多，我們感覺就越好。

　　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.

　　睡眠影響著我們的情緒。我們的情緒又影響著我們的行為。在一整天中，我們的情緒水平和行為水平保持著密切的聯(lián)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.

　　在過去的20年中，研究大大擴展了我們關(guān)于睡眠和夢的知識?？茖W(xué)家們已經(jīng)確認(rèn)了睡眠的各個階段，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)人在睡眠很少的情況下機體仍能夠很好運轉(zhuǎn)，但只是在睡眠時做了夢才如此。然而對于睡眠和做夢的功能，仍不能作出準(zhǔn)確的解釋。

　　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，退伍軍人管理醫(yī)院的彌爾頓?克萊默和辛辛那提大學(xué)醫(yī)學(xué)院的托馬斯?羅斯各自提出這一問題：我們早上的情緒和我們頭天夜里的睡眠和做夢有沒有聯(lián)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.

　　人們的經(jīng)驗會說，它們確實有聯(lián)系。當(dāng)然，在一夜的足睡之后，我們一般會感覺較好，但是克萊默和羅斯兩位醫(yī)生找到了一個更加明確的答案。盡管這個答案還在繼續(xù)充實，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.

　　克萊默和羅斯開始這種研究時，是通過研究人們夜晚和早上的情緒是否有所不同，這種情緒是否和睡眠直接相關(guān)。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)情緒有差異，而且確實與睡眠有關(guān)，接著他們研究了情緒的各個方面，以及它們與睡眠和做夢的各個階段的關(guān)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.

　　一夜的足睡對我們的情緒意味著什么呢?一般來說，我們會更愉快，不那么有攻擊性，更瞌睡，而且令人不解的是，還不那么友好。更瞌睡容易理解，它僅是醒后花點時間使自己清醒而已。

　　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.

　　但是為什么我們會感覺不那么友好呢?這里研究人員必須作點猜測，他們說可能和人們在睡眠時缺少與人交往有關(guān)。

　　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.

　　兩位醫(yī)生一旦把常識和民間智慧長期教給人們的東西――即睡眠和我們的感覺之間有聯(lián)系――科學(xué)地確定下來，他們就著手了解我們的情緒的什么部分與睡眠周期的哪些具體部分有關(guān)。

　　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.

　　正常的睡眠被分為五個不同的階段――從第一階段到第四階段,加上“REM”(“眼球快速活動”的縮寫)。每一個階段都有許多人們未知的東西,大部分的夢發(fā)生在REM睡眠期間,這一期間眼球在眼瞼下快速運動。不論成年人是否記得，他們都通常一夜做夢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.

　　三種情緒和睡眠的某一階段密切相關(guān)。我們友好的、有攻擊性的、困倦的感覺都和睡眠的第二階段相關(guān)，我們大部分的睡眠時間都處于第二階段，我們友好的、困倦的、但不帶有攻擊性的感覺受到第三和第四階段以及我們多久才能入睡的影響。

　　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.

　　這就意味著如果你比正常時睡得少――人們正常需要多少睡眠是有很大差別的――你醒后就會更友好，更有攻擊性，少些困倦。

　　At this point, the doctors found themselves puzzled. They knew from their earlier work that sleep determines if people feel happier. Yet when they studied the various sleep stages, they found no correlation between sleep physiology and the unhappy mood. Clearly sleep made a difference, but that difference didn't relate to how much time one spent in each of the various sleep stages.

　　在這一點上，醫(yī)生們感到困惑。他們從先前的工作中了解到睡眠決定著人們是否會感覺更愉快。然而當(dāng)他們研究睡眠的各個階段時，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)睡眠的生理狀況和郁悶的情緒之間并沒有關(guān)系，雖然，睡眠會帶來差異，但是這種差異和人們在每一睡眠階段花費的時間長短沒有關(guān)系。

　　The two researchers decided the key to whether we feel happy or unhappy after sleep must lie in sleep's psychological component -- our dreams. So they began studying dream content -- what dreamers dreamed and who appeared in their dreams -- to see how this affected mood.

　　兩位研究人員斷定，睡覺以后我們是否感覺高興的關(guān)鍵在于睡眠的心理構(gòu)成部分――我們的夢。因此他們開始研究夢的內(nèi)容――做夢者夢到了什么，誰在夢中出現(xiàn)――來弄清楚它會怎樣影響情緒。

　　Instead of sleeping through the night, volunteers now were awakened four times while in REM sleep. They were asked about such things as what their dreams were about; the sex, age, identity, and number of the people in their dreams; and what each person in a dream was doing.

　　參加試驗的志愿者不是整夜睡覺，而是在REM睡眠中被喚醒4次，然后回答這樣一些問題：如夢的內(nèi)容，夢中人物的性別、年齡、身份和數(shù)量，以及夢中每一個人的所作所為。

　　Interestingly, Kramer and Roth found that being awakened four times a night didn't make a difference in the volunteers’ morning mood patterns. But they did find that who appears in a dream has afar greater influence on mood than what occurs in the dream. "Who affects all the moods,” Kramer says, "but primarily the unhappy mood.”

　　令人感興趣的是，克萊默和羅斯發(fā)現(xiàn)，一夜被喚醒4次并沒有使志愿者早上的情緒模式發(fā)生變化。但他們卻發(fā)現(xiàn)誰出現(xiàn)在夢中比夢里發(fā)生什么事對情緒具有大得多的影響?！皦糁谐霈F(xiàn)的人物影響著所有的情緒，”克萊默說：“但首要的是不高興的情緒?！?/STRONG>