The human body, despite thousands of years of research, has not been studied, and even experienced world-famous scientists cannot explain some phenomena. The visions that come to every person at night remain a mystery to professors and academicians. There are many hypotheses about why dreams occur, and to accurately explain this feature is not only difficult, but also impossible, but there are interesting versions that will allow us to partially unravel the mystery of dreams.
What types of sleep phases exist?
Questions about where dreams come from have troubled people for thousands of years. Rarely does anyone even come close to the correct hypothesis. There is only one reason here - even scientists have not yet determined why a person sees colorful, tempting pictures or terrible nightmares during a night's rest.
The exact reason why dreams occur has not been determined, but scientists were able to find out through long-term observations that there are two types of night sleep - deep and fast. They are very different and have their own characteristics, which are quite interesting. The phase of dreams determines whether a person will remember in the morning what he dreamed.
Many people believe that a person does not have dreams if they are not remembered, but this is not true - people simply forget what they saw.
Fast
REM sleep always has inexplicable effects on the body. One of the phenomena is a sharp decrease in hormone levels, an increase in blood pressure on the main organ - the brain. This immediately affects dreams - if you wake up a sleeping person and ask what he saw, the remembered plot will be retold in detail.
The peculiarity of REM sleep is that it lasts for half an hour, rarely a little longer. These periods occur during the night. Often the fast phase lasting up to an hour occurs in the morning hours, then the person remembers vivid visions.
Scientists have proven that we dream almost every day, but not all dreams are remembered. Nothing depends on the phase here - the person simply forgot what tempting or unwanted pictures were visited at night.
Deep
In addition to the fast phase, which is short and takes up 20-25% of the night's rest, there is another type that lasts the rest of the time. During this period, a person relaxes, rests, and gains strength for the next day. Consciousness and body freeze, functions lose activity. Thanks to this, dreams do not occur - the brain refuses to show tempting or scary pictures.
Scientists claim that the body itself adjusts to loss of mobility, otherwise it is quite possible that a person will begin to repeat the movements or processes he has seen and will be injured or commit undesirable actions.
Fast and slow varieties alternate, and the body freezes for about an hour. It has been revealed that, unlike important organs or the body, the eyes continue to function. During the active phase, they move, as if a person is carefully watching something; during a deep immersion in sleep, the pupils freeze in place.
Some scientists believe that this is the reason for dreams and through the eyes of the sleeper he sees different pictures that resemble reality and are realistic.
The role of emotional perception
It is difficult to disagree with the statement that the plot of a dream is directly related to the psycho-emotional state in which a person goes to bed. Stress at work, conflicts at home, and anxiety can result in a dream into an endless labyrinth of confusing rooms, constant problem solving, scary visions or an awkward sleeping position.
The experiences and emotions experienced by a person in reality are extrapolated to night visions. Thus, being in a depressed state, a person in dreams sees the people around him as sad and despondent, and with his own aggression – angry and unkind.
If the dreams are light, joyful, and the people in the dreams are happy and smiling, it means that the person is in spiritual harmony and has a positive perception of the world.
Frequently dreaming is completely normal. However, regular nightly, emotionally charged dreams exhaust a person. And then his main desire, no matter how strange it may seem, is to stop dreaming and sleep at least one night without a “silent movie.”
Of course, people are primarily bothered by frequent bad and nightmare dreams, which they want to get rid of. But the solution to every problem lies in the reasons for its occurrence.
Why do I have dreams?
There are many hypotheses about dreams, origins and causes, and no one will be able to determine what factors provoke the appearance of night images. Psychologists say that dreams are a continuation of daytime events. During the night's rest, a person experiences what happens during the day.
If the day was filled with pleasant incidents, dreams will bring positivity and peace. Troubles and unwanted events will result in negative images or nightmares.
The fears and phobias that a person suffers from in real life will certainly be reflected at night - this means that the brain is working hard on these problems and even during rest it shows negative emotions.
It’s easy to verify the likelihood of a common hypothesis - you can look at the information in the dream book. Often it coincides with the pictures seen and explains why such unpleasant pictures were dreamed.
Images of human desires
One of the hypotheses voiced by scientists who have devoted their lives to studying the behavior of the human body during a night's rest is that the pictures seen are the result of dreams. The subconscious mind indicates secret or hidden desires that could not be realized in reality.
From a psychological point of view, this version seems quite true. Other explanations are not so plausible, although many believe that what they saw at night does not correspond to the situation in real life, but on the contrary - the person is not going to fulfill his desires.
Features of the brain
Recently, a theory was presented that the brain:
- independently gets rid of unnecessary information seen during the night;
- helps to remember or forget dreams;
- leaves pleasant pictures in memory, sends nightmares or unwanted events to the subconscious;
- helps to make a decision over which a person was tormented in real life, sending corresponding dreams.
Another version is that the brain processes situations that occur throughout the day (week, month, year).
It often happens that after a night's rest a person easily understands his mistakes made during this time and finds a way to correct it.
Permanent activation
Zhang Jie, a famous Chinese psychologist, put forward his own version of how the brain works. The doctor's hypothesis is that an organ located in the head and responsible for all processes in the body sends nerve impulses that accelerate during REM sleep.
The brain is not idle at this time - it systematizes pleasant or negative memories. They move from short-term to long-term memory throughout the night. Some of the memories are partially activated, due to this visions appear that the awakened person remembers well or partially forgets in the morning.
Waiting for a threat
Pictures often appear throughout the night that alarm a person, preparing him for unpleasant situations or danger. This ability of the human body has been known for thousands of years - in ancient times, it was by such signs that future events were determined that they tried to avoid or prevent.
Even now they are trying to use the information that was seen during the night to prevent trouble. It is believed that there is no need to pay much attention - the rhythm of life, human abilities, and body functions have changed. There are exceptions, but only among people who have special abilities to see the future, and this often happens during the night with the help of realistic pictures.
Natural selection of thoughts
Mark Blancher, a psychologist from America, believes that during the night the brain independently simulates different situations, after which it selects emotional incidents. The life of many people consists of these events dictated by dreams, although often the person does not even know about it.
With the help of scientists, it was possible to determine that some dreams are lucid - the sleeper can not only remember the picture, but also control the events occurring in the vision.
To do this, you do not need to have special abilities - after short training, everyone will be able to manage incidents visible throughout the night. If you bring a person out of this state suddenly, with a sharp awakening, you can cause mental trauma - the brain will not have time to readjust to reality.
Celebrate all the good things
The next stage of getting rid of bad dreams is to list in the evening all the good things that happened during the day.
You should also write down everything pleasant by hand on paper, and not on a computer or smartphone.
Neurotic individuals have problems performing this exercise. If they can easily find the bad in their life, they can’t find the good. But you have to try.
You can always find at least something positive in life. There would be a desire to do this. For example, you live in a city apartment. And you have hot water in the tap and working sewerage. Isn't it lovely?
So, if you don’t want to have a terrible bad dream again, perhaps even a nightmare, you will have to develop your imagination.
Why do I often have nightmares?
Where do dreams come from, in which frightening and unwanted events occur, and is it possible to avoid nightmares - these questions visit every person who has at least once seen a terrible picture during the night. Scientists believe there are several reasons:
- emotional response to important events in real life;
- feelings about something;
- the brain does not have time to process information received during daytime wakefulness;
- an abundance of negativity in life;
- mental problems requiring specialist help.
Often, during deep sleep, the brain independently sorts unwanted pictures and makes a person forget about them. In the morning, the person who wakes up remembers that he had a nightmare, but cannot reproduce the events experienced during the night’s dream.
What happens if you don't sleep
People who are constantly lacking sleep, at a minimum, have a weakened immune system, are more prone to cardiovascular diseases and often have metabolic problems.
Lack of sleep for more than 2 days is fraught not only with terrible health, but also with clouding of consciousness, for example, in the form of hallucinations.
A week without sleep means almost guaranteed hallucinations (visual and auditory), paranoia, lack of coherent speech, a significant decrease in thought processes and severe wear and tear on all body systems.
If you don’t sleep for 10 days or more, you can easily lose your mind and die.
Do you have prophetic dreams?
Psychologists have divided opinions about whether it is possible to see a vision that suggests what to do in the future or change events. Some believe that a person with a special gift and ability may well see events that will occur during the day, week, or year. Others are sure that the pictures seen at night, explaining upcoming events and warning of danger in reality, are a coincidence.
There are several hypotheses about whether dreams should be believed. Scientists do not advise trusting your feelings if you have dreams that warn of future events - it is quite difficult to understand the peculiarities of the brain, so it is not worth asserting that it sends true pictures of danger.
How dreams are born
Content:
- What is sleep
- How dreams are born
- Why do we dream: the most common theories
- Why do we have nightmares
- Interesting facts about dreams
- What do our dreams depend on?
There are many concepts that explain why we dream. Some researchers believe that these are images of unfulfilled desires. There is also an opinion that a dream is a collection of events that the brain processes for a certain time, and at night “throws” them into consciousness.
Most scientists agree that the birthplace of dreams is the hippocampus. This is the area of the brain that controls feelings, emotions and memory. It is also in this part of the brain that memories of events that happened during the day are stored. Some of this information goes to the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for long-term memory. However, some scientists suggest that “data” from long-term memory can be returned to a person in the form of dreams.
Why are dreams forgotten?
Why do you dream of vivid pictures, but by the morning it is impossible to remember what exactly you dreamed at night? Scientists have worked a lot on this problem and can confidently say that the reason here lies in man. Some psychologists voice the idea that the brain independently determines what can be allowed to be remembered in the morning, and which dreams should be ignored and forced to go deep into the subcortex of consciousness.
All images arise by chance due to brain impulses, and the stronger the signal, the higher the likelihood of remembering what you saw. There are many advantages to this - unwanted incidents that threaten to develop in life are completely forgotten, without disturbing the person in real life.
You should not trust dreams and rely on information seen during the night - many factors can influence visions, so the embodiment of pictures in life is a coincidence. This is especially true for unpleasant dreams - the brain can worry, independently recreate unwanted images, and prepare for events expected in the near future. It is better to treat dreams as an integral part of a person, for which there is no explanation, and simply enjoy pleasant visions, banishing unwanted images from memory.
Scientific explanations
Every day the brain remembers and reacts in a certain way to a huge number of events. You go to bed, but only your body is completely at rest. And the brain continues to repeat and consolidate the information, making it a kind of script.
The scenario can be a repetition of the events of the past month, recent or current situations. Anxieties, thoughts and dreams form additional information that can lead to completely unrealistic stories, ridiculous visions and nightmares. What is sleep from a scientific point of view? Nothing more than a generalized picture of internal experiences and reality.
Turn on white noise at night
Some anxious patients get rid of nightmares by falling asleep to sounds that have a positive effect on their mood and overall mental state. It could be cheerful music, sounds of laughter, birds singing. Anything.
The noise control should be turned on very quietly.
It should be pleasant for you personally.
If laughter or chirping annoys you, do not turn it on under any circumstances. Also, don't use this method if you only sleep well in complete silence.
Classification of dreams and their meanings
In the book “The Language of Dreams. Bridge to the Unknown" author Rita Lev describes her many years of research into dreams, techniques and methods of working with them. The author recommends preparing for a sleep analysis in advance.
How to understand your dream
A dream is such a vague picture that often a person cannot remember the details of even the most vivid plot after waking up. To exclude this and be able to interpret your dreams, you need to use the following rules:
- Please note that a person always dreams about himself, and all the people from it must be correctly associated with the personality of the sleeper.
- Before going to bed, place a pen and a piece of paper at the head of your bed.
- Prepare yourself in advance to memorize the plot, and go to sleep with this thought.
- When you wake up in the morning, write down everything you remember, even if fragments of thoughts seem incomprehensible and ridiculous. Try to colorfully describe and name everything that you dreamed at night.
- Identify the most vivid images and feelings that come to mind. Write them down.
Now it’s time to figure out what the subconscious “whispered” under the cover of darkness.
