We all dream, don’t we? Even if you say that you don’t dream, it is not possible as everyone dreams but they don’t remember it. Dreams are the vivid visuals that we see during our sleep. They are wishful, pleasant, scary, disturbing or even full of fantasies and impossible things. Sometimes your dreams can even confuse you. But the common question here is, why do we dream?
You can dream during any moment while sleeping, but usually, it happens during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. During this phase, your brain is most active.
There are different types of dreams; normal dreams, lucid dreams and nightmares.
Lucid dreams are the ones in which the person is aware of what he is dreaming as he dreams it during REM and being half awake.
Nightmares, on the other hand, we all know are quite scary and disturbing which can be caused due to stress, alcohol abuse, fear, trauma, emotional distress, medications or drugs.
Consider watching this video to know more about how long does a dream last…..
Some experts say that dreams are important because they solve your problems, process emotions and recall memories. They say that this might be the reason why you dream, for example, if you sleep with a disturbing thought, you may wake up with a solution to that problem that you saw in your dream.
Most of the dreams can even make your brain understand the thoughts and events that happened during the day. While other dreams are just the result of your brain activity.
Dreams are a way of processing your emotions, stimuli, memories and information by the brain. Dreams can also be called as hallucinations that occur when you are sleeping. They appear during the REM phase and stages where you may not be able to recall what you saw.
Whatever you think has a logic to it during the day, but when you sleep, those thoughts still appear in your dreams because your brain is active but those thoughts make no sense. Instead of the logical centres triggering the dreams, they appear from the emotional centres of the brain, that’s what explains why we get illogical dreams.
Your brain makes connections of feelings and events in your dreams. These connections are not made by you when you are conscious, so in order to deal with your emotions, the brain finds a way through dreams to deal with them.
Some researchers say that dreams exhibit your unconscious thoughts and are a pathway to your subconscious. They become a way to satisfy the desires that a person cannot satisfy in real life. For example, a kid may dream of playing with a toy sports car because, in reality, he can’t have one.
Dreams that appear over and over again are said to be your fears and concerns about certain things.
Dreams can be a fight and flight response, according to a theory, they alarm you about a threat because your amygdala is awake when you are sleeping. But during your sleep, you receive signals which relax your muscles so you don’t run or fight in your sleep.
During your sleep there are no logic regions working, so your creativity increases and you get artistic, letting your thoughts and ideas flow. That is why some people have ideas to make creative things when they wake up after a dream.
Another theory suggests that dreams help you remember memories, recall them and forget unimportant memories. They help you sort out feelings and thoughts of memories that confuse you.
What do you think, why do we dream? What is your theory? Let us know your answers in the comments below.
Until Next Time,
Team Doctor ASKY!