Did any of you sit for a while to think about why I’m having dreams? Sometimes weird dreams on top of that? Sometimes we dream about our crush and search meaning of that. We are here to provide you some logic and science behind dreams. There is nothing wrong with having dreams so rest assured. Everybody dreams maybe every day also sometimes in one night you have 4-5 dreams.
The ancient Egyptians thought dreams are some helpful series to make strong decisions that help to plan and win battles. The Greeks and Romans perceived that dreams are parts of future happenings that help them to predict the future.
Sigmund Freud believed that dreams are our stifled desires. Carl Jung provides a theory that dreams are some sort of shaped energy having emotions released by our subconscious and enter into higher regions of the brain.
You can also say that dreams are like dumping your all-day data collection. Dispose of your useless memories and review the valuable memories in a form of dreams.
Study at Max Planck Medical Institute
A 2007 study in Heidelberg, Germany explains that the neocortex trigger during your sleep and then gives signals to various regions in the hippocampus to provide the data store in short-term memory. The neocortex then decides which data should transfer to long-term memory and which should be disposed of.
At the same time, the hippocampus is empty to gather more days for the next day. This data you see in your common dreams like jumping from a high building or running into a forest. Sometimes you don’t even remember what you saw in your dreams.
Neurobiological Theory on Dreams
This theory is known as the ‘activation-synthesis hypothesis’ which explains that dreams are nothing but electrical brain impulses that pull our thought and play in a form of dreams.
Sometimes you had a hectic day so all you think about work in your dreams. At the same time, if you are emotionally unstable then you will dream about having a broken heart or giving away your precious things to someone.
Threat Simulation Theory
Some dreams have a purpose, they don’t come randomly. Threat simulation theory presents that dreaming can be explained as an old defense mechanism that provides a huge benefit because of its capability to simulate threatening happenings.
If you have no dreams then it may cause some anxiety in you because some dreams give hope and you wish this dream should be real.
Over the years, many theories have been presented to give logic behind human dreams. As some of the dreams are unforgettable while some dreams left only a slight scene of dreams when we wake up.
Why do You Remember Some Dreams?
Cristina Marzano and her fellows at the University of Rome explains why you remember some dreams by inviting 65 students to spend a night at their lab to measure the pattern of their brain waves.
The first night, the children sleep soundly. But the second night, they measured their brain’s waves. You should know that our brain has four types of waves which are delta, theta, alpha, and beta. Combining these waves types form an electroencephalography technique which is used by the researchers to measure brain waves of 65 students during their sleep. The students were requested to put details of their sleep in a diary whether they saw any dream or not. If they dream during sleep how much of the dream they remember.
Most of the people remember their dreams who have REM sleep. This study explains that, the students who show a low rate of theta waves in frontal lobes of the brain can remember their dreams. The more theta activity in brains looks like perfect encoding and recovery of autobiographical memories we see when we are awake.
Using the MRI technique, intense dreams are linked to the amygdala and hippocampus. The amygdala helps in processing and memory of emotional reactions while the hippocampus transfer memories from short-term to long-term. Emotionally intense and vivid dreams are more likely to remember.
Rapid Eye Movement Sleep
You have a sleep cycle in your dreams when you are in different stages of REM and Non-REM sleep. You can dream more often and sleep more in REM sleep when the brain’s system risen to activation even at the level of your consciousness. REM sleep is at their peak in childhood and possibly dreaming plays a role in psychological development and brain maturation.
Your sleep would be more peaceful if you don’t have dreams but everything has a purpose. So if you don’t have dreams then your minds would not be rich with hopeful and positive thoughts.
You can say that dreams help to process emotions by encoding them into memories. Besides, dreams regulate the traffic of your thoughts that connects our experiences and emotions into memories.
