Summary: The Science Behind Nightmares

Every individual dreams; however, some people are affected more than others. Dreams are sequences of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Most occurring during rapid-eye movement or REM—when brain activity is high and resembles being awake. Many believe that dreams are a connection to an individual’s subconscious. Sigmund Freud, a scientist in the early 1900s performed extensive studies on dreams, including their interpretation, why they occur, and what they indicate. In addition, people have done studies to see the connection between dreams and certain sleep disorders.

Why do we dream? What do our dreams mean? Dreams are a sequence of images, ideas, and feelings that involuntarily occur most commonly during the REM stage of sleep. They come in a wide variety of types, from the peculiar to the downright terrifying; the dreamer has no control over what they experience in their dreams. Though neurologists have been studying the human brain for decades, we still don’t fully know why we dream or what their significance is. Some psychologists theorize that dreams are closely linked to our subconscious mind, expressing our deepest fears or desires, allowing us to be what we cannot be. Others believe that dreams serve no function at all and are simply our imaginations running wild. In the words of Sigmund Freud, the founding father of psychoanalysis, “The dream is the liberation of the spirit from the pressure of external nature, a detachment of the soul from the fetters of matter.” (The Interpretation of Dreams)

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

To many people, dreams are the thoughts that occur while sleeping, having almost mystic qualities. For millennia the significance of dreams has escaped even the brightest of philosophers and intellectuals. Many people have speculated about why people dream and what meanings the dreams have but in recent times two theories have gained credibility in answering those questions. The first theory is Sigmund Freuds and the other is known as the cognitive theory of dreams also known as biological determinism.

The US National Library of Medicine defines a nightmare as, “a bad dream that brings out strong feelings of fear, terror, distress, or anxiety.” A dream, then, is a series of thoughts or images that happen during the rapid-eye movement (REM) stage of sleep. Research has shown that the biggest amount of common adult dreams are in a category known as “pseudonightmarish” dreams, which is essentially any dream of being in trouble or in danger, being alone and/or trapped, something you don’t have control over (like losing your teeth), or facing natural forces.

The journal entry begins by introducing the concept of nightmares and the negative emotion that is followed by such occurrences. People who are experiencing negative emotions more frequently are often times more likely to having nightmares or other intolerable dreams. The journal also points out how many people who experience nightmares also experience frequent dreaming in general. All the data contrived from people who experience frequent nightmares found that these people experience a wide variety of dreams that are usually triggered by a state of severe emotion. Another form of dream experienced by such people is Day-dreaming. The journal explains that people with a higher occurrence of nightmares, experience dreams in many other forms. They also are more prone to letting their mind wander even when they are not fully asleep. These people may experience similar states of

Have you ever been terrified to fall asleep at night? Nightmares are frightful dreams in which the dreamer can feel threatened, severe anxiety, and deep distress. Emily Bowen has been experiencing these horrid dreams for the past week. These nightmares can send you into a movie like trance in which you are the star.

Nathaniel Kleitman PhD. from the University Chicago, conducted an experiment in which he woke up participants in the middle of the REM cycle, and they recalled more "vivid and bizarre" dreams. The people who were woken during other sleep stages hardly remembered dreaming at all (Ghoyarashi). The part of the brain that produces strong emotions and fears in dreams is called the amygdala, an almond shaped lump in each cerebral hemisphere (Van Der Linden). You can blame nightmares, anger, and desires induced by and during dreams all on the amygdala. The neocortex of the brain, the largest part of the cerebral cortex is what makes dreams feel so real. This part of the brain is what controls sensory perception, or in the case of dreams, the perception of sensory perception. The neurons in this part of the brain is what makes seeing, touching, and hearing in your dreams feel like real life (Van Der

Dreams are primarily stories and images our mind build while we are asleep. Dreams can make you feel happy, sad or scared. They can be sometimes vivid or sometimes seems

Dreams vary with age, sex, and life experiences. Angier states that the amount of nightmares experienced decreases as age increases. Even so, most of the emotions felt when having a dream, nightmare

A dream, by definition, is a sequence of emotions, ideas, images, and sensations that involuntarily occur in the mind at various times; typically during the rapid-eye movement (REM) stage of sleep (American Heritage Dictionary, 2000). Throughout history, dreams have been the cause of much speculation; holding both philosophical and religious interests (Hobson, 2009). Before the days of scientific research, opinions varied regarding dreams, and their usefulness in psychotherapy. Dreams were often viewed as either being divinely inspired or having derived from a dark, evil source. Even in today’s scientifically advanced society; dreams are still not totally understood.

There is also different parts of the brain that works differently during REM sleep. The left side of the brain is the one with a deep dream. When that is taking place, the right side is unconscious. The emotions people have in their dream comes from the Limbic system which lies on the sides of the Thalamus. The amygdala is part of the limbic system, and it creates one of the emotions called fear. The frontal lobe also takes place during REM sleep. It makes people feel the realness of the dream, and it is the most uncritical.

Holzinger, G. Klosch, and B. Saletu (2015) at the Institute for Consciousness and Dream Research involved an initial forty participants, thirty females and ten males, ranging in age from twenty to fifty-nine. All participants were volunteers recruited through unspecified media (Holzinger et al., 2015). The only pre-requirement, as stated in the advertisement, was for participants to be experiencing frequent nightmares at least twice a week (Holzinger 2014). In addition, participant’s nightmares had to fit the institutes definition as ‘recurrent awakening from sleep with recall of intensely disturbing dream mentation’s and were accompanied by dysphonic emotion’ (p. 355). Prior to acceptance to the study, all participants were required to go through a screening process to eliminate any person with additional sleep behavior disorders, excluding anyone experiencing sleepwalking or night terrors and anyone suffering from REM sleep behavior disorder, epileptic seizures, or psychotic symptoms. After passing all screenings, participants were randomly assigned to two groups; group A: Gestalt therapy group (GTG) and group B: Gestalt and lucid dreaming therapy group (LDG) where each group had twenty members.

On the other hand, there is not an exact or one percent proved explanation in scientific terms on why or how dreams occur; however, many erudite have developed theories on why they might happen. Many of them include an area of our brain that activates the dream imagery while sleeping. Allan Hobson, Harvard Medical School professor, stated in his activation-synthesis model that as soon as the dreamer enters REM sleep, which is the state where dreams are said to occur the most, a signal of electrochemical pulse changes is sent out from the brainstem and activates the dreamer’s visual perception. After this signal is sent out, the forebrain responds by putting significant effort in creating a gibberish story in the dreamer’s mind.

Gottschall uses the studies of Katja Valli and Antii Revonsuo (Finnish dream researchers) to provide numerous statistics. Gottschall writes,” in 2009 Valli and Revonsuo estimated that an average person has 3 rem, dreams per nights and about 1,200 rem dreams per year …they estimate that 860 of those 1,200 dreams feature at least one threating event... the researchers estimate that people experience about 1,700 threatening REM dream episodes per year, or almost 5 per night. ”(81-82) Valli and Revonsuo concluded that people would respond reasonably, realistically, and appropriately to their dream dilemmas.