Intersexes

Hermaphrodites. Most of us have heard of this but not many can say they know why some people are born this way. A lot of people simply hear the word and are just judge them. Hermaphrodites are also known as intersexes. An intersex is someone who has a mixture of male and female genitals. According to the Intersex Society of North America, an example of an intersex can be a girl born with a large clitoris but lacking a vaginal opening, or a boy can be a boy born with a very small penis or with a scrotum that is divided so that it forms a labia. This condition isn’t very common though. The numbers of how often people are born this way are 1 in 1500 to 1 in 2000.

There are several different reasons why someone can be born as an intersex. A common reason is people are born as intersexes is because of a genetic condition. Sometimes people are born with an XX chromosome pattern but an SRY gene, others because of an atypical hormone pattern. The most common cause of intersex is congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH).

A lot of these people often have trouble finding other like themselves and live an unhappy life. Others have been known to not know that they are classified as an intersex until late in their life and even until they are dead and an autopsy is performed. What I can say is that if we ever know of anyone this way, we should not judge them and treat them the same as anyone else.

 

 

REM Sleep

I find REM sleep to be very interesting. It is astounding to me how our brain works to protect us even in our sleep. REM sleep is deep sleep but also light in some ways. This stage of sleep was named REM when researchers discovered that there were long period of rapid eye movement during this stage. During REM sleep, our brain activity is very high but our body muscles are very relaxed which is why it is deep sleep. REM sleep is the stage of sleep in which we dream. This is why our brain activity is very high during this stage. When dream our body goes into a paralyzed state which is the deep part of REM sleep so that we won’t act out our dreams. Imagine if we acted out every single thing we dreamed. We’d be out there running, screaming, killing, etc. which would be too dangerous.

There are people who suffer from a certain disorder called REM Behavior Disorder. According to the National Sleep Foundation, people with this disorder act out their dreams because their body is not put in the paralyzed mode to keep them from acting out their dreams. They physically move limbs or even get up and engage in activities associated with waking. Some talk, shout, scream, hit, punch, or fly out of bed while sleeping! RBD is usually noticed when it causes danger to the sleeping person, their bed partner, or others they encounter.

For people with this disorder, their brain fails at protecting them during sleep and they can be at risk of great dangers not only for them but for anyone else around them while they are asleep because we all know, our dreams can get pretty crazy and dangerous sometimes!

Here's an example of someone with REM Behavior Disorder so you can see for yourselves what it looks like.