Why We Dream

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.

Humans, like any other animals, sleep. No one fully understands why we have to sleep. But if we are deprived of sleep for too long, we die. It is as true as dreams and dreaming. The longer a person sleeps they will reach an advanced stage in sleep where the body begins to experience rapid eye movement(REM). Humans experience most of their dreams during the REM period. While a person is awake or asleep, the mind consciousness functions as a model of the world that was constructed by our brain. While awake, the mind takes in informations throughout the day that it can remember.

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)

The average person spends more than one-third of their life sleeping, and over this period of time he or she can have as many as 1,825 dreams (Wicklinski). By definition, dreams are mental images, thoughts, or emotions that are experienced while sleeping. In the beginning, dreams were thought to be messages sent from the gods or spirit world. Researchers now have many theories explaining why people dream. Many of these theories believe that dreams can resemble an individual’s sensory experiences or even secret wishes. All people dream, but only forty-two percent can recall their dreams from the night before (“Dreams”). Dreaming is important because it can impact people’s health, provide insight into what they are feeling, and reveal

Dreaming, although a substantial component of our nighttime lives, remains somewhat of an enigma due to the fact that it occurs while we are unconscious. The inaccessibility of the unconscious mind weakens full analysis and comprehension of dreaming which researchers have been attempting to accomplish. However, over the years many researchers have elucidated many mysteries about dreams, such as when we dream, why we dream, and what we dream about, in order to bring forth an understanding of dreams as well as identify

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.

Dreams are a very ponderous things. Simply saying, dreams are a stream of images, sounds, and

When I was doing my research it was a little hard to find good sources that are centered on the science behind dreams. A lot of the information seemed to be pretty old and outdated. That was when I found the dreaming brain by J. Allan Hobson. This author takes a look at the

An abundance of research has been generated on sleep and why it occurs, with results suggesting that dreaming may partially explain the phenomenon. Though results have failed to discover the primary function of sleep, they have unveiled dreaming as a secondary function, which despite not being fundamental for survival possesses a great deal of utility nonetheless. While the primary function of dreaming, much like the primary function of sleep, remains ambiguous; a number of theories and empirical studies have proposed secondary functions relevant to waking life. The threat simulation theory, for example, postulates that dreaming serves an evolutionary function, thought to have heightened survival and reproductive success in the Pleistocene era. The theory purports that dreaming allows for an endogenous simulation of potential threats, which rehearses the cognitive mechanisms necessary for threat perception and avoidance in reality (Valli, Revonsuo, Pälkäs, Ismail, Ali, & Punamäki, 2005; Arnulf, Grosliere, Le Corve, Golmard, Lascols & Duguet, 2014). Additionally, the continuity theory posits that dreams mirror waking life experiences, thus serving a predictive function. In accordance to this theory, dream imagery can be used to predict wellbeing, and diagnose depression and anxiety (Miller, DeCicco, Fox, & McCourt, 2015; DeCicco, Lyons, Pannier, Wright, & Clarke, 2010; Michels, Schilling, Rausch, Eifler, Zink, Meyer-Lindenberg, & Schredl, 2014). Lastly, dreams have a

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.

REM stands for Rapid Eye Movement, a stage of sleep where the more vivid dreams occur (Coville and Holt). Subjects awaken during REM sleep describe how they were just dreaming and are able to recall it with much more detail than in the other stages of sleep (Coville and Holt). When awakened during non-REM sleep subject often have a more positive regard for their self where those awakened during REM sleep have a more negative emotion(Coville and Holt). This negative emotion is due to a part of the brain called the amygdala(Coville and Holt). The amygdala is present in both have of the brain and it influences the more negative emotions that people have, such as fear and regret. During REM sleep a person's eyes move around while they are still asleep, and a part of their brain paralyzes most of their muscles to prevent movement(Coville and Holt). Their brain does this to prevent them from moving around and often acted out the dream while they are still asleep. There is a rare REM sleep disorder where the the body does not become immobilized and is often the cause for sleepwalking (Coville and Holt). As a person sleeps the go through these five stages in a loop, it take around 90 to 110 minutes to complete a cycle (Coville and

Sigmund Freud believed dreams to be the royal road to the unconscious and I’ve come to agree with this based on personal experience. Sigmund Freud saw the mind as an iceberg mostly submerged in water. The tip of this iceberg represented the conscious part of the ego and a small portion of the super-ego. While everything below the water was, unconscious including the Id and the rest of the super-ego. Freud believed that within the frozen core of this solitary iceberg were wishes so disgusting, horrifying and painful that they had to be repressed by the practical ego and pious superego for their own safety. However, these wishes were important to the id, our most primal and instinctive part of the psyche. These wishes while vile to the ego, are still necessary to be a whole person. However, the iceberg only allowed these vile wishes to ascend when the pressure was lowed from the higher functions. Freud saw that sleep as the moment of lowed pressure on the Id. This was due lowered ego defenses during times of rest. However, these defenses functioned enough to disguise the wishes somewhat though the process of

Dreams are series of thought, stories, ideas, emotions that happen unintentionally in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Human sleep occurs in several cycles during the night, each cycles consisting of five stages. Light sleep to very deep sleep are ranging during the first four stages, EEG machine shows that the brain activities are decreasing by demonstrating the electrical wave rhythms from first to fourth stage. The four stages can categorized as non-REM sleep (or slow-wave sleep). However, during the fifth stage, there are increased activity of the brain which is associated with rapid eye movement (REM). Due to the increased activity of the brain, most of the dreams happen during REM sleep. People dreams all night long. According to scientific American, each person dreams three to five times per night, some may up to seven

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.

    Everybody dreams during his lifetime. It is a part of human nature that we experience almost everyday. Dreams can be lost memories, past events and even fantasies that we relive during our unconscious hours of the day. As we sleep at night, a new world shifts into focus that seems to erase the physical and moral reality of our own. It is an individual's free mind that is privately exposed, allowing a person to roam freely in his own universe. As we dream, it seems that we cannot distinguish right from wrong or normal from abnormal and, therefore, commit acts that we would not have done in a realistic society. Perhaps Lewis Carroll, author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,