Inception: Pure Science Fiction Essay

Dreaming is yet another state of consciousness. A dream is simply an unfolding episode of mental images that involve characters and events. Dreams usually tend to occur during REM sleep but can occur during NREM sleep as well. We dream on a variety of topics, subjects, and individuals. No dream can be exactly interpreted or defined, therefore people have always been fascinated with what, why, and how we dream. An unpleasant and almost terrifying type of dream is a nightmare. This is a very vivid, almost real

Dreaming is defined by the Barron AP Psychology Book as “the series of storylike images we experience as we sleep (McEntarffer, 2016, p. 113).” Dreams come in all shapes and sizes; some seem random and others may seem to hold more meaning. There are a wide array of dream theories including Freudian theory, information-processing theory, and activation-synthesis theory as described in the aforementioned book. Freud’s perspective emphasizes the unconscious mind and how dreams can reveal repressed memories. Similar to Freud’s theory, the information-processing theory attributes dream content to daily stress as the brain uses dreams to process a day’s events.

As we lay ourselves down every night to put our bodies to rest, our brains begin doing something extraordinary. It begins piecing together images, creating scenarios, simulating sensory perception, and adding in emotions and fears. They can make us wake up with a smile on our face or in a cold sweat. Dreaming is such a strange and often inexplicable phenomenon, but something we all do just about every night. People have theorized the process and the utility of dreams for centuries. However, much of the accepted knowledge we have a bout dreams today is still only theory. In fact, hardly anything about the dreaming experience is concrete because it is an experience

Dreams are wild imaginations that undergo through the human mind so as to illicit hallucinations and fantasy in the virtual world. However, it is important to note that a dreamer experiences this emotional occurrence whilst existing in the real world with real objects and substances. The mind is the source of evidence that everything seen, felt, touched, smelt, tasted or imagined real and feasible. The mind is the fundamental well of giving people the ability to differentiate between

Dreams are very unique and many people have theorized about what a dream 's meaning or purpose is, and what affects them. In most present day studies, more vivid dreams have been linked to the stage of sleep called REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. REM dreams are emotional, bizarre, and sometimes so vivid we may confuse them with reality. Most commonly, a dream’s story line incorporates traces of previous day’s experiences and preoccupations. Unless a person is awakened during REM stage of sleep or the dream is exceedingly vivid or intense, most people don’t remember anything about their dreams during REM sleep. This is likely due to the fact that during REM sleep, our brain essentially turns off the ability to encode,or create, new memories.

We spend six years of our lives in sleep and many of us do not think about what occurs while asleep. Everyone has experienced more than a few dreams while asleep, that is because, whether you know it or not, everyone dreams while asleep. Based off the Activation Information Mode Model theory, dreams are random neurological firings that have no particular meaning. The reason dreams feel so real and personal is because they are based from recent memories located in the brainstem. Although dreams are meaningless, our brain tries to make connections. Through the Activation Information Mode model people are able to analysis personal dreams.

Next, the limbic system, which is located in the forebrain and is the one in charge of a person’s emotional life, gets highly activated as well. This is probably why dreams are said to be guided by emotions – just as Hartmann believed. In addition to that, when the dreamer goes to bed,

distinguish the difference when in a dream state but wrong on the idea that same goes for when we

TRANSITION: Now that we saw what functions in the brain during a dream we can better understand the significance

“The average person spends a total of about six years dreaming - 2 hours each night - although one third of our lives is spent sleeping” (“Dreams”). Everybody that goes to sleep, dreams. Dreams are a huge part of individuals because they experience dreaming every time they go to sleep. However, no one exactly knows what are dreams define. Even though people are aware of their dreams, they do not know when they dream. Dreams are emotions, thoughts, images, and sensations that happen while sleeping. They cannot be controlled, or so many people believe, so not anything that happens in your dreams are in people’s control. Scientists discovered that dreaming happens in rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep. Another thing about dreams is that

There is a hypothesis out there that defines dreaming as a way to act out unconscious desires in a secure or unreal place, because in all likelihood to do so in real life would be unacceptable or inappropriate. In reality, the brain is a mysterious and interesting thing. According to Charles Bryant, “Scientists have been performing sleep and dream studies for decades now, and we still aren't one hundred percent sure about the function of sleep, or exactly how and why one dreams. People do know that our dream cycle is typically most abundant and best remembered during the REM stage of sleep” (Bryant, 2010). The real question of whether or not dreams have a biological or physiological function has scientists yet to come up with a legitimate answer.

Because of this, the theory that I find myself in most agreement with is the Activation Synthesis Theory. According to an article by Kendra Cherry (Verywellmind.com) Activation Synthesis Theory is essentially the idea that when we dream it’s our mind sorting out gathered information and is basically the minds “clean up” process. She explained how according to research done by Allen Hobson our dreams are our mind interpreting the activity that is produced by our limbic system during REM sleep. According to Cherry’s article she stated that Hobson believed there are five key characteristics of dreams. Those characteristics include illogical content, intense emotions, acceptance of strange content, strange sensory experiences, and difficulty remembering dream content. The Theory of Activation Synthesis definitely stirred the pot. Dream researchers who based their ideas and research off of interpreting the meaning of dreams did not like the idea that dreams were merely our brain in a sense just “twiddling its thumbs” until we wake and it can go back to doing its regular job. Its intriguing that there are so many different theories about dreams because it’s one of those things where you can

Scholars define lucid dreaming as the ability to achieve mental consciousness while still physically asleep (Levitan et al). During a normal or ‘non-lucid’ dream, people take their dreams for reality; a lucid dream allows dreamers to conquer that false belief and realize they are dreaming while still asleep. Although dreams occur in all stages of sleep, complex dreams (the ones remembered upon awakening) take place in the rapid eye movement stage (REM) (Gackenbach et al). Using a polygraph, scientists observed the brain activity of individuals while they slept; when an individual entered into a lucid dream, areas of the conscious brain and unconscious brain lit up (Levitan et al). In a lucid dream the unconscious mind and the conscious mind

Thesis Statement: Dreams are successions of images, emotions, and sensations that occur subconsciously during sleep.

There is no part of the brain that is totally inactive during dream-state, but of course some parts of the brain are more active than others. One particularly active area of the brain during REM sleep is the limbic system, which includes the hippocampus and the amygdala. This area of the brain is involved in processing emotions and fear, among other things. The prefrontal cortex shows low activity during REM sleep, which is responsible for logical reasoning and self-control. During dreams, the brain allows the controlling side of the brain to give way to the more primitive, less rational way of thinking, which is better known as the Activation-Synthesis Model of dreaming. “The brain synthesizes and interprets this internal activity and attempts to find meaning in these signals, which results in dreaming. This model suggests that dreams are a subjective interpretation of signals generated by the brain during sleep,”