
What Do We Know About Dreams – During REM sleep, your subconscious puts on a fantastic show—but the storyline can be hard to follow. (Why are you riding a trampoline in Indonesia?) “The main function of dreams is to give us access to thoughts and feelings that we may not be aware of,” says Mark Smaller, PhD, president of the American Psychoanalytic Association. We asked Smaller to explain the process of interpreting dreams. Just take a pencil and dip into your subconscious.
As soon as you wake up, write down everything you remember about your dream, noting as many objects, people and locations as possible. Smaller said, “One of Freud’s greatest discoveries was that small elements of your dreams can indicate big problems. A lot of information is condensed into small details.”
What Do We Know About Dreams
Write down the connection each detail brings to you. For example, if the dream takes place in your childhood home, consider what the significance of that place is and how it relates to the broader premise of the dream.
Why Do We Dream?
Write down the emotions triggered by the dream. Are you excited, scared, annoyed, dizzy? How about you wake up later?
Ask yourself what else in your life inspires the same emotions. For example, if your childhood home reminds you of bullying by your older brother, think about what is happening in your life now that is similar to that experience.
Go back to your list of associations and try to combine them into one narrative. (Your childhood home reminds you of being bullied…. The oranges you ate reminded you of Florida…. Your boss, who grew up in Miami, was quite aggressive with you in yesterday’s meeting….) Then move on into life real you armed with greater insight into what’s going on in your head.
Dream: Teeth Falling Out Possible meaning: “If in a dream you cannot speak, in real life you may feel that there is something you don’t want—or can’t—say. If you cannot eat in a dream, this may be about unfulfilled desires (in fact, some people interpret this dream as a dream of a sexual nature). Maybe something is making you hungry.”
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Meaning of the dream: You are cheating on your partner, or vice versa. Possible meaning: “First, why now? What happened in your relationship to make this come to the surface? The dream may be a measure of your anxiety towards your partner—or it could also be that you are seeing someone interesting thing on the bus. Not all dreams have a deeper meaning.”
Dream: Seeing a UFO Possible meaning: “It may sound obvious, but the key word here is invasion. Is there something undesirable intruding on your space right now? And consider what we know about heavy equipment: It has no feelings. Does that describe yourself—do you feel bored, like you’re on autopilot?”Who needs to stream the latest Hollywood movies? When you sleep at night, your brain weaves together strange and familiar scenarios to create the strangest midnight movies ever. In other words: dream.
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But why do we dream—and what do they all mean? Experts don’t have many concrete answers, but behavioral sleep medicine expert Michelle Drerup, PsyD, DBSM, explains what we
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However, the prevailing theory is that dreaming helps you consolidate and analyze memories (such as skills and habits) and most likely serves as “practice” for the various situations and challenges a person faces during the day.
We also know a lot – but not all – about what happens physiologically during dreams. Most dreams occur during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which we experience periodically at night. Sleep studies show our brain waves are almost as active during REM cycles as when we are awake.
Experts believe the brain stem produces REM sleep and the forebrain produces dreams. In fact, if the brain stem is injured, the patient dreams but does not enter REM sleep. And if the forebrain is injured, the patient goes into REM sleep but does not dream.
At the same time, we have to learn more about what happens psychologically when we dream. For example, a study shows that dreams come more from your imagination (memories, abstract thoughts, and expectations that arise from within your brain) than from perceptions (real sensory experiences that you collect in your forebrain).
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And experts have found that dreaming can accompany mental conditions. We know that people living with post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) are more likely to experience nightmares. This is a manifestation of tension in people with PTSD due to repeated traumatic experiences.
Of course, people without PTSD also experience nightmares, so more research is needed into the source of these often disturbing dreams.
It may have something to do with neurotransmitters, or brain chemicals. During REM sleep, some of them are more pronounced while others are suppressed.

Acetylcholine (which maintains brain activation) is more prominent, as is dopamine (which some researchers have linked to hallucinations). Dopamine can help give dreams a surreal quality.
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Meanwhile, REM sleep suppresses the neurotransmitters that normally keep us awake: histamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine. Therefore, we are less aware of our environment.
We can’t answer that easily because we haven’t found a good way to study dreams in humans. Memories of dreams fade quickly after you wake up, and it’s difficult to correlate brain scans with your dream reports.
The relationship between space and time also changes when you dream. Time seems to go on forever — or pass very quickly.
Most people dream every night. However, you won’t remember your dream unless you wake up during or after it.
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This can be frustrating, although Dr. Drerup says writing down what the dream was about as soon as you wake up can help.
However, there is still another mystery. In the 1950s, Dr. Sigmund Freud introduced dream interpretation, but we have never been able to prove his claims. In fact, Dr. Drerup notes that dream interpretation is completely subjective.
So, leave behind the books that promise to tell you what your sleep visions mean, and look at your own life.
Have you ever wondered what dreams are and why some of them seem so strange? A behavioral sleep medicine doctor discusses what experts do – and don’t – know about dreams. But what exactly is a dream? Why are some dreams good and some bad? Why do some dreams scare you and wake you up from the dream?
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If you often have dreams and believe in them, you have probably asked yourself at least some of these questions. Don’t worry, We have answered them all in this article. Stick with me till the end, and you will surely find the answer.
Before we delve into dreams, you must first understand your sleep cycle. When you sleep, there are two phases of sleep. These phases are known as Rapid Eye Movement or REM sleep and Non-Rapid Eye Movement, namely NREM sleep.
When we sleep, we go through these two phases periodically. It is recommended that you sleep at least 7-9 hours to be able to undergo both phases.
Once you will experience the NREM sleep phase for a few minutes which will then move to REM for a while and return to NREM. This cycle continues several times throughout your sleep time.
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To clarify the basics, NREM is the phase when you are in deep sleep and your brain is less active. Therefore, the dreams you see in this phase are easily forgotten. However, dream play begins in REM sleep.
Here, various parts of the brain are active so that memories of dreams seen in this period are clearly visible. The time interval of these two phases continues to increase as the night goes by.
Dreams are visuals we experience while sleeping based on what we felt or did throughout the day. Our brain visualizes recent events and tries to derive some meaningful information from it.
Dreams are visuals or emotions that we experience while sleeping. It is completely the product of our imagination. Although visual images are found in most dreams, it is also believed that dreams involve all our sense organs. We can also smell, hear or taste in our dreams.
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You shouldn’t be surprised to know that blind people can also dream. Depending on the generation of the dreamer, they experience dreams in different colors.
For example, the younger generation is more likely to have colorful dreams while the older generation dreams in black and white.
The content of dreams is certainly different for each person based on their psychology and imagination. However, here are some characteristics that are usually found in all dreams:
Only a few dreams are easy to remember while some are easily forgotten. Why? The answer lies in the stages of sleep we experience. We will read about it later in this thought-provoking article.
What Is Dream And Why Do We Dream?
Nightmares are distressing dreams that bring unpleasant emotions. Frequent nightmares can lead to loss of mental stability and mood during waking life.
Nightmares are also known as bad dreams. These dreams are so disturbing that they often wake us up from sleep.
There are so many disturbing feelings associated with such dreams that the dreamer gets trapped in them
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