Why do we dream!
You travel to South Korea, where you meet BTS members. They ask you to join them. You are very excited to sing with them. You move on the stage. Everyone is chanting your name. You are super excited. You hold the mic to sing. But you got stuck. You close your eyes and try to think, why can’t you sing!? AND WHEN YOU OPENED YOUR EYES…. You realize it was a DREAM.
But what actually the dreams are? What’s the science behind dreaming? Let’s find out.
The question of why we dream has intrigued many philosophers and psychologists. There are several theories related to it. One theory suggests that dreams boost your imagination, while another claims they improve your emotional memory.
Dreams occur during a certain stage of sleep.
Stages of sleep include:
Non-REM Sleep Stage 1:
- Alteration period between wakefulness and sleep
- This lasts around 5 to 10 minutes
Non-REM Sleep Stage 2:
- Body temperature drops, and heart rate slows
- The brain generates sleep spindles.
- Lasts for roughly 20 minutes
Non-REM Sleep Stage 3:
- Muscles become more comfortable.
- The rate of breathing and blood pressure both drops.
- The most restful sleep happens.
REM Sleep Stage 4:
- The function of the brain increases.
- The body becomes drowsy and immobile because of the relaxation.
- Dreams occur.
- The eyes shift rapidly.
As dreams occur during REM sleep. It happens after 90 minutes you fall asleep.
Your thoughts have a definite logic when you are awake. And you build scenes and scenarios in your dreams with no logic. If you have a restless night, your dreams will become more vivid and vague.
What influences dreams?
Domhoff, G. W., & Schneider, A. says in his article about dreaming:
“The cognitive–developmental evidence that dreaming does not reach the frequency of adult dreaming until ages 9–11, and is not fully like that of adults until early adolescence, which does not fit with the claim that dreaming has adaptive value for young children as a rehearsal of perceptual and interaction skills”
Dreams depend on many factors:
- Eating Habits
National Sleep Foundation found that;
“it’s not just what you eat, but when you eat it that can affect your dreams. Dining on an enormous meal just before turning in for the night boosts your body’s temperature and metabolism — two consequences that result in more brain activity during the REM stage (a.k.a. when you dream)”
- Sleeping posture
Each sleeping position can affect your dreams. Studies show that the people who sleep on the right side face less nightmares as compared to left side sleepers.
- Emotions
Researchers have found that emotions influence our dreams. Negative emotions such as depression, rage, anxiety, uneasiness, and tension manifest in dreams more than positive and happy emotions, according to studies. You live in the moment that you are happy, and if you are unhappy and don’t want to share your feelings, you will most likely create a scenario in your dream where you will tell yourself the whole event that caused you to be sad. People with anxiety disorders are also likely to have recurrent nightmares.
- Current situations
“The dreaming mind has this really cool way of seemingly flawlessly incorporating the outside interference into the storyline of the dream,” interpret Lauri Loewenberg, a certified dream analyst and member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. This means that what you go through during the day will affect how you sleep at night. However, don’t over-interpret your dreams because it can muddle the meaning your dreaming self is trying to convey.
