From a wet dream to a dream falling into a cliff: why do we dream?

Medical Video: Why Do We Dream?

For centuries, humans have pondered the meaning of dreams. At the beginning of human civilization, dreams were interpreted as intermediaries with the world of the gods. Ancient Greeks and Romans believed that dreams had certain divine powers, a direct message from God. Since then, there has always been a great interest in trying to interpret human dreams.

Dreams can be entertaining, disturbing, or really strange. We all dream - even if we don't remember the next day. But why do we dream? And, what, really, is the meaning of a dream?

Why do we dream?

Modern dream theories were introduced by two legendary psychologists, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Freud's theory centered on the idea that dreams are desires, longings, motivations, pent-up desires - dreaming allows the dreamer to sort out and realize pent-up desires. Meanwhile, Carl Jung, Freud's student, believes that dreams are a reflection of emotions when we are awake, as well as a kind of "call" of the subconscious that allows us to find a common ground for problems or anger.

Although many thinkers believe that our dreams have one particular meaning, others think dreams are only brain activity during sleep; dreams are electrical brain impulses that draw random thoughts and images from our memories. According to this theory, humans build a story that we call "dream" after awakening, as a natural effort to make it reasonable.

However, a number of recent studies compiled in the Journal of Neuroscience, reported by Scientific American, provide interesting insights in trying to interpret the mechanisms underlying dreams, and the strong relationship between dreams when we fall asleep with long-term memory. Have you ever woken up in the morning and clearly remembered your dream storyline? Researchers believe that the mechanism of the brain's nervous system when directing dreams and when we remember them is the same as when we remember memories in our wake. They also found that very strange, intense dreams felt very real (the kind of dream that dreamers usually remember) related to the workings of the brain's amygdala and hippocampus. The amygdala is the main actor in the processing and memory of emotional reactions, while the hippocampus is more involved in important memory functions - strengthening information from short and long term memories.

Another study found that dream production took place in the area of the brain called the right inferior lingual gyrus, the brain structure associated with the vision of processing visual memories, analysis of events, and emotions.

No matter what and who starts the theory of dreams, it seems that experts can now agree that dreams may be present to help humans process emotions with passwords and build memories of these passwords and codes - though they are not necessarily proven. What we see and experience in our dreams is not necessarily real, but the emotions inherent in these experiences are real. Our dream story basically tries to remove certain emotions from certain experiences by recreating that memory; help us deal with further trauma or stressful events. In this way, the emotion itself is no longer active. The mechanism of dreams fulfills an important role because when we do not process our emotions, especially negative ones, this increases our anxiety and anxiety - which ironically, triggers a nightmare.

In short, dreams help regulate traffic on fragile bridges that connect real-world experiences with emotions and memories that you keep in every deep brain contour.

Who dreamed?

Evidence from laboratory research shows that everyone dreams. Although a small percentage may not remember dreaming at all or claim that they did not dream, he thought that most people dream between 3 to 6 times a night, with each dream lasting between 5 and 20 minutes. Even so, women experience a dream duration that is slightly longer with more characters than men's dreams.

Dream memory decreases from the start of early adulthood - not in old age - and reports suggest that the more aging, the dream becomes less intense. This evolution occurs faster in men than women. According to a small number of research papers, the frequency of dreams in degenerative dementia patients is less frequent than healthy parents. In Alzheimer's disease, at least this dream can be attributed to a decrease in REM sleep and the removal of associative sensory areas in the outer layer of the brain. A very rare clinical condition, known as Charcot-Wilbrand Syndrome, is known to cause sufferers (among other neurological symptoms) to lose the ability to dream. Meanwhile, people with narcolepsy have a more bizarre and negative impression of a story line. Migraine sufferers experience an increase in the frequency of taste and smell in dreams.

Other mammals such as cats and mice also "dream". They see the beams of pictures during deep sleep, although they may not be dreams as we know them. Cuttlefish shows a sleep-like state accompanied by discoloration, twitching, and rapid eye movements, similar to REM sleep in humans.

Why are we hard to remember dreams?

Researchers don't know exactly why dreams are easily forgotten. Maybe humans are designed to forget dreams because if we remember all our dreams, we cannot distinguish between dreams or imagination and which are real memories.

In addition, it may be difficult to remember dreams because during REM sleep our body partially kills the system in the brain responsible for creating memories. We can only remember dreams that occur right before we wake up, when certain brain activities have been reactivated.

Some say our minds are not really forgotten about dreams, we just don't know how to access them. Dreams can be stored in our memories, waiting to be called back. This idea might explain why you might suddenly remember your dream last night, while eating lunch, for example - something that happened that day might trigger your memory.

People who wake up during REM have much better memories of dreams, according to a number of studies; in fact, these people will often say they have just dreamed.

Clear dreams, aka lucid dream - the dream that you directed yourself

Have you ever dreamed but you know and feel very sure that it's just a dream? This type of dream is called lucid dream (clear dream). Research has shown that clear dreams are accompanied by increased activation of parts of the brain that are usually turned off during sleep. Clear dreams represent the state of the brain which is at the threshold of REM sleep and the condition is awake.

Some people who dream clearly are able to influence the direction of their dreams, changing the flow of the story as they wish. Although this seems interesting to do, especially during nightmares, many dream experts say it's better to let your dreams occur naturally.

"It feels like I've seen that person before, how come it suddenly appeared in my dream?"

Have you ever realized that frequent images, "stories", or people who appear in dreams are images, experiences, or people you saw recently?

Generally, the details of the dream you have witnessed beforehand, maybe the previous day or the week before the dream. The process of remembering something from a week ago is known as an effect dream-lag. The big picture, some types of experience require a week to be processed into code into the "drawer" of long-term memory, and some images of this strengthening process will appear in dreams.

Memory thinkers point out that the hippocampus (a region deep in the forebrain that helps regulate emotions, learning, and memory) plots events from the previous day, chooses some to extract into long-term memory and then begins to move these passwords to the neocortex (upper layer) the brain is divided into four main lobes: frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital) for permanent storage. The transfer process takes about a week. Dreaming can participate in the relocation of memory storage from the hippocampus to the neocortex from time to time.

Another study examined the relationship between dream emotions and identification of characters in dreams. Affection and joy are generally related to the character known to the dreamer and are used to identify them even when these emotional feelings are not consistent with when they are awake. Come on, who ever dreamed of falling in love with the next bench friend who was super annoying? Although embarrassed to be acknowledged, but that's about the explanation.

Dreaming of falling from a cliff, what does that mean?

You fall asleep, inching closer to the dream world, when suddenly, you feel danger. You feel yourself falling, trying to catch yourself, and suddenly jumping up is startled. What is this?

You experience sleep disorders commonly known as hypnic jolt (also sometimes called "hypnagogic jolt" or "beginning of sleep," and they don't always wake the dreamer). Hypnic jerks are involuntary twitching of muscles, known as myoclonus - Hiccups also fall into this category. Scientists have observed that hypnic jolts are associated with a rapid heartbeat, rapid breathing, sweat, and sometimes "strange sensory feelings will be 'surprise' or 'fall into emptiness.'"

No one knows for sure what caused this phenomenon, but it seems that when the effects of new sleep will begin to take over the body and brain, the "life" of your wake seems to sometimes crawl back unexpectedly, shocking you until you wake up.

This "beginning of sleep" jolt is common and harmless, often in very healthy people. They are sometimes, though not always, triggered by fatigue, stress, lack of sleep, strenuous exercise, and stimulants such as caffeine and nicotine. Next time, if you experience it, just take a deep breath, relax, and try to go back to sleep.