Dreams – Commonly asked questions

Dreams …

Everyone has dreams. Dreams can be beautiful, magical and exciting; but they can also be frightening – waking you up in the middle of the night in panic. Do dreams actually have meanings or are they just short movies that your subconsciousness randomly creates. Today, we will explore some interesting questions you might have thought of at least once in your lifetime

In ancient Egypt those with colorful and vivid dreams were considered to be special people. So special that most of their dreams were recorded on papyrus. The Egyptians firmly believed that divine revelation came from dreams in which you could find all the answers to your worries and gain wisdom. If you are interested in knowing how brain actually acts while we are dreaming then do read this article. DREAM – Physiology

WHAT DOES OUR DREAM MEAN?

I can’t really go any further without mentioning Freud. His theories of dreams are probably the most well-known around the world. In 1899 German psychiatrist Sigmund Freud in his book ‘Interpretation of dream’, theorized that dreams represented a window into the unconscious mind – a reservoir of feelings thoughts, Urges and memories, that are beyond our conscious awareness. Most of the contents of the unconscious mind are supposedly unacceptable or unpleasant representing feelings of pain, anxiety or conflict. When we’re sleeping, the forces that keep these feelings in check are weakened. Allowing us to live out our desires and even fears, through our dreams. Freud strongly believe that by exploring dreams people could increase self-awareness and an insight into their unconscious self. That would then help them deal with problems in their day-to-day lives.

Dreams can serve as a gateway to the human mind. In fact, there are several studies that help prove the theory that dreams may be our brains way of letting us know about our problems. Whether they are about being chased by an unknown figure or simply being able to fly, you can discover a lot about yourself based on the types of dream that you are prone to having. If you wanna know what your dream is trying to say then read DREAM INTERPRETATION.

WHY DO WE FORGET OUR DREAMS? 

Now, some of you might be saying, “I don’t even dream” but the truth is everybody has about 3-7 dreams a night. Dreaming is something we all do and some of the world’s greatest discoveries have come from ideas during the dream state. If you ask someone what did they dream? The results are almost unreliable. Yet many people just don’t remember them once they wake up. In fact, it is estimated that people tend to forget 95% of their dream after 10mins of waking up. So, what you remember of your dreams is only a small fraction of what you actually dreamed. 

There are about 10,000 trillion neural connections within the architecture of your brain. Dreams are created by everything you think and everything you do. A 1983 neurobiological theory of dreaming, called reverse learning, holds that while sleeping, and mainly during REM sleep cycles, your neocortex reviews these neural connections and dumps the unnecessary ones. Without this unlearning process, which results in forgetting of dreams, your brain could be overrun by useless connections and parasitic thoughts could disrupt the necessary thinking you need to do while you’re awake. Hence your dreams are not stored in your long-term memory and you tend to forget them.  

But there is an exception, if you happen to wake up suddenly while you are in the REM phase of sleep, you are often able to remember quite a lot of your dreams content. Of course, dreams can also stick with you if you have a particular dream repeatedly or if they contain some very strong emotions 

DO ANIMALS DREAM? 

The hardest part about answering this question for scientists is that well animals perhaps can’t tell us about their dream. Basically, everything we do know about whether or not animals dream, comes from what we know about human dreams. Many scientists have looked at the brain activity of sleeping animals in order to try and solve the mystery once and for all. What they found is that overall mammals and birds have a REM stage when they sleep but cold-blooded animals like reptiles, amphibians and fishes don’t. But their research didn’t stop there. 

Researchers put rats on a track and they measured their brain activity while they moved towards food at the other end of the track. Once the same rats fell into the REM stage of sleep, they measured their brain activity once again and saw identical patterns. This led scientists to believe that rats were dreaming about running for food on the track. Many experts believe the same thing is true for dogs. Just like rats, pups likely dream about their day-to-day lives and experiences, pretty cool right !! even cooler the smaller the dog the more it dreams.  

CAN WE PREDICT FUTURE IN OUR DREAMS? 

There are some really astounding instances in which people have foreseen things in their dreams that would happen to them. These dreams often turned out to be surprisingly accurate. These dreams are known as premonition dreams. Were these dreams a glance into the future? Or were they just a matter of circumstance? Well, some pretty strange cases of premonition are recorded in history! 

For example: 

• Many of the 9/11 victims dreamed about the coming terror attack in US 
• Mark Twain dreamed about his brother’s death 
• Abraham Lincoln two weeks before he was shot dead in 1865. He had a dream about a funeral at the White House when he asked someone who was in the casket. They replied the president. He was killed by an assassin 
• The verified dreams of 19 people foresaw the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. Several people apparently canceled tickets and decided to not travel based on their dreams. 

It’s not because you dreamed it and then it became a reality but maybe it was already a reality hence it has happened. Now you imagine something and then you make it a reality tomorrow that is also possible. It is necessary to assume that the future consists of many possibilities and which one becomes reality is determined by the choices.

FINAL THOUGHTS

At this stage in your life don’t attach any importance even if a few of them come true but not all of them are going to come true. Even if they do come true, don’t attach any significance to your dreams because it’s like a Pandora’s box. If you open it you can’t handle it, it’s better it’s shut. Just with your logical mind and a bit of spiritual you can handle your life quite well you don’t need visions to handle your simple process of life.  

Everyone at one time or another has wondered what their dream mean. Some believe that dreams have no meaning and serve no function. Others believe that they’re one of the most important things that human biology has allowed to happen. There’s in fact many theories of why we dream and what purpose it serves.

If you wanna know more about dreams and for more such article check out the website medicoved.com

Author : Dr. Easminara Shaikh