Dream : Why We Dream, Nightmares, and Lucid Dreams

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Dreams are one of the most fascinating and mystifying aspects of sleep. Since Sigmund Freud helped draw attention to the potential importance of dreams in the late 19th century, considerable research has worked to unravel both the neuroscience and psychology of dreams.

Despite this advancing scientific knowledge, there is much that remains unknown about both sleep and dreams. Even the most fundamental question — why do we dream at all? — is still subject to significant debate.

There are still many mysteries surrounding the purpose of dreams and why the brain creates stories during sleep. It is difficult to study something that takes place while asleep and relies on people remembering what they experienced upon waking. However, new research has advanced the scientific understanding of dreaming

What are Dreams ?

Dreams are images, thoughts, or feelings that occur during sleep. Visual imagery is the most common1, but dreams can involve all of the senses. Some people dream in color while others dream in black and white, and people who are blind tend to have more dream components related to sound, taste, and smell.

Studies have revealed diverse types of dream content, but some typical characteristics of dreaming include:

  • It has a first-person perspective.
  • It is involuntary.
  • The content may be illogical or even incoherent.
  • The content includes other people who interact with the dreamer and one another.
  • It provokes strong emotions.
  • Elements of waking life are incorporated into content.

Although these features are not universal, they are found at least to some extent in most normal dreams.

What Are Nightmares?

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Nightmares are a type of dream associated with frightening or other strong negative emotions. Researchers generally define nightmares as bad dreams that are so severe they wake the sleeper up. Among other factors, nightmares can be brought on by worries, stress, traumatic events, or mental health disorders.

What Is a Lucid Dream?

A lucid dream is a dream in which the dreamer knows they are dreaming and may be able to exert some control over what is happening in the dream. Researchers estimate approximately 50% of people have had a lucid dream at least once. A lucid dream may occur randomly, when the dreamer spontaneously realizes they are dreaming. People may also use special techniques to try to induce lucid dreaming.

Why Do We Dream?

More research is needed to know exactly why people dream, but studies have uncovered some possible theories:

  • Learning and Emotional Regulation: Dreams are heavily influenced by real-life memories, and some scientists believe they may contribute to memory consolidation and emotional regulation. Recent research has found that people with damage in areas of the brain that control memory and imagination experience less detailed dreams, suggesting that dreams might be a continuation of thought processes that are similar to waking life.
  • Creativity: REM sleep is associated with creativity, which may explain the often bizarre, fantastic nature of dream imagery. Anecdotally, many people claim that dreams have inspired creative works and helped with problem-solving.
  • Wish Fulfillment: Sigmund Freud, the neurologist famed for founding psychoanalysis, believed dreams were a form of wish fulfillment, and studies have found that suppressed thoughts can bubble back up to the surface in dreams. However, many current-day researchers consider psychoanalytic dream interpretation to be a pseudoscience.
  • Default Mode Network: Researchers are currently exploring how dreams might arise from a system known as the default mode network. Often associated with daydreaming, the default mode network incorporates multiple brain areas and kicks in when a person is not concentrating on anything in particular. Some experts believe that bizarre dreaming in REM sleep occurs when part of the default mode network becomes disconnected from areas that ground thoughts in reality.
  • Synaptic Regulation: Along the same lines, other researchers propose that dreaming might be the byproduct of mental housekeeping, when the brain is busy sorting through memories to decide which to keep and which to prune away.
  • Building memory: Dreaming has been associated with consolidation of memory, which suggests that dreaming may serve an important cognitive function of strengthening memory and informational recall.
  • Processing emotion: The ability to engage with and rehearse feelings in different imagined contexts may be part of the brain’s method for managing emotions.
  • Mental housekeeping: Periods of dreaming could be the brain’s way of “straightening up,” clearing away partial, erroneous, or unnecessary information.
  • Instant replay: Dream content may be a form of distorted instant replay in which recent events are reviewed and analyzed.
  • Incidental brain activity: This view holds that dreaming is just a by-product of sleep that has no essential purpose or meaning.

Do Dreams Affect Sleep?

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In most cases, dreams don’t affect sleep. Dreaming is part of healthy sleep and is generally considered to be completely normal and without any negative effects on sleep.

Nightmares are the exception. Because nightmares involve awakenings, they can become problematic if they occur frequently. Distressing dreams may cause a person to avoid sleep, leading to insufficient sleep. When they do sleep, the prior sleep deprivation can induce a REM sleep rebound that actually worsens nightmares. This negative cycle can cause some people with frequent nightmares to experience insomnia as a chronic sleep problem.

For this reason, people who have nightmares more than once a week, have fragmented sleep, or have daytime sleepiness or changes to their thinking or mood should talk with a doctor . A doctor can review these symptoms to identify the potential causes and treatments of their sleeping problem.

Source : www.sleepfoundation.org

Published by ClickForAYEYARWADY Team

100 Replies to “Dream : Why We Dream, Nightmares, and Lucid Dreams”

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  56. Thanks for sharing. I’m can dream in many nights. About of my dream, Especially funny dream😂, And sometimes I dream sweet dreams and nightmare. My dreams are many different types.😂

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  64. မလွယ်တာတွေ့ရင် ပိုခက်တဲ့ တခြားဘဝတွေကို ငဲ့ကြည့်ပါဦး says:

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  66. ပရွက်ဆိပ်ကိုက်ရင်ဘိုလုပ်မလဲ😂😂😂

  81. I wanna recommend a song for all clickers. It is Joseph Vincent’s “Our First Love”. Have sugar dreams.

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  96. I can’t agree with one fact.Even though all of my dreams are not nightmares,they affect my dreams.Sometimes when I dreamed of some dreams,they are really annoyed(they are not nightmares)

  99. I do not want to dream because it disturbs my sleep. I like good dreams. But,when I dream of the impossible, I lose sleep.
    Nightmares only happen when I’m sick. I want everyone to get a
    good night’s sleep. Thank you for knowledge.

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