Have you ever had a dream and wondered what it meant? When people fall asleep, they often have dreams in which strange things take place. They could be exciting or horrifying or even nerve-racking. But what do these dreams represent? Are they an embodiment of something or a prediction? Although no one has a definite answer for why people dream, we can still look into some of the most popular theories behind dreaming.
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Dream Interpretation
Psychologist Sigmund Freud interpreted dreams as the expressions of a person's deepest desires and anxieties. In other words, the content of dreams reflects the subconsciousness of the dreamer. Meanwhile, despite the extreme emotions that may be experienced in dreams, they are also considered by some scholars as a kind of psychotherapy. For example, Gary Alan Fine, Ph. D. in Social Psychology from Harvard University once said, "Dreams are the external condition of personal thoughts,” because firstly, dreams are not forced by oneself, and secondly, dreams reflect the social reality just like a public speech.
REMs
REM, also known as rapid eye movement, is a stage of sleep characterized by random and fast movements of the eyes. The tendency of sleepers to dream vividly during REM is relatively high because muscle tension is generally low throughout the body at this time. During REM, the brain chemicals necessary to convert short-term memory into long-term memory are inhibited. And in the full eight hours of night sleep, most of the dreams occur within two hours of a typical REM. People enter REM within ninety minutes after falling asleep, and as people drift on into the night, REM occurs several times throughout the entire sleep cycle. REMs account for approximately 20% to 25% of an adult sleep cycle and more than 50% of an infant's sleep cycle.
Lucid Dreams
During REMs, the incidence of lucid dreams is higher. The events of dreams are usually not within the control of the dreamer. But lucid dreams allow the dreamer to be self-conscious. This also means that you may have the ability to alter your dreams. When you wake up in the middle of a lucid dream or immediately after it, you will clearly remember this dream. In your next sleep, you will give some hints to your subconscious such as recalling this previous dream or having the same dream again. And in this reverie, you can control everything.
Why do We Have Incredible Dreams
We may have dreamed of many things that we hope to happen but shouldn't at all. Dreams satisfy the repressed part of fantasies, and at the same time keep the consciousness away from those thoughts that will suddenly jolt us awake. The formation of memory and mental confusions in the process of dreaming is a spectacular work of our brains. In the process of dreaming, the continuity of the prefrontal and posterior areas of the brain – which are responsible for controlling our behavior and emotions – are distinctively poor, which is why we occasionally have unbelievable dreams.
Conclusion
Dreams are a way of expressing emotions. A masterpiece of certain parts of our brain trying to construct a story from information that may be totally bizarre in reality. But there are many truths in dreams that cannot be explained, and we still await the discovery and excavation of later generations.
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The Anonymous Helpers (TAH)
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