Fortunately, the brainstem sends out nerve signals during REM sleep that relax your muscles. One theory for why we dream is that it helps facilitate our creative tendencies.
Artists of all kinds credit dreams with inspiring some of their most creative work. You may have awakened at times in your life with a great idea for a movie or a song, too. Research shows that sleep helps store memories.
But dreams may help the brain more efficiently store important information while blocking out stimuli that could interfere with memory and learning. Dreams that help you deal productively with emotions, memories, and other information may seem very helpful. Nightmares tend to be caused by stress, anxiety, or sometimes as a reaction to certain medications.
However, if you have nightmares frequently, you could have a sleeping disorder. Regularly occurring scary dreams can be labeled a sleeping disorder if the nightmares:. Many people experience occasional nightmares throughout their lives. However, the American Sleep Association estimates only about 5 percent of the population experiences persistent nightmares as a sleeping disorder.
Being sleep-deprived for a night or two or more can make parts of your brain much more active when you finally do slip into REM sleep. Being pregnant is also a catalyst for vivid dreaming. Increased hormone production affects the way your brain processes thoughts and emotions. This often leads to some intense dreams.
Mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety , as well as bipolar disorder and other mood-related conditions, can trigger intense and sometimes disturbing or negative dreams and nightmares. The medications for these conditions, including antidepressants and antipsychotics, are also associated with a higher risk of nightmares. High-carb foods, for example, can give you quick energy. But after a while, they can leave you feeling down.
Anything that affects your waking mood is likely to affect your unconscious mood, too. A dream includes the images, thoughts, and emotions that are experienced during sleep. Dreams can range from extraordinarily intense or emotional to very vague, fleeting, confusing, or even boring. Some dreams are joyful, while others are frightening or sad. Sometimes dreams seem to have a clear narrative, while many others appear to make no sense at all.
There are many unknowns about dreaming and sleep , but what scientists do know is that just about everyone dreams every time they sleep, for a total of around two hours per night, whether they remember it upon waking or not. Beyond what's in a particular dream, there is the question of why we dream at all.
Below, we detail the most prominent theories on the purpose of dreaming and how these explanations can be applied to specific dreams. Traditionally, dream content is measured by the subjective recollections of the dreamer upon waking. However, observation is also accomplished through objective evaluation in a lab.
In one study, researchers even created a rudimentary dream content map that was able to track what people dreamed about in real time using magnetic resonance imaging MRI patterns. The map was then backed up by the dreamers' reports upon waking. Some of the more prominent dream theories contend that the function of dreaming is to:. Many experts believe that we dream due to a combination of these reasons rather than any one particular theory.
Additionally, while many researchers believe that dreaming is essential to mental, emotional, and physical well-being, some scientists suggest that dreams serve no real purpose at all. The bottom line is, while many theories have been proposed, no single consensus has emerged on why we dream. Dreaming during different phases of sleep may also serve unique purposes.
The most vivid dreams happen during rapid eye movement REM sleep , and these are the dreams that we're most likely to recall. We also dream during non-rapid eye movement non-REM sleep, but those dreams are known to be remembered less often and have more mundane content.
According to Freud, people are driven by repressed and unconscious longings, such as aggressive and sexual instincts. While many of Freud's assertions have been debunked, research suggests there is a dream rebound effect, also known as dream rebound theory, in which suppression of a thought tends to result in dreaming about it. In " The Interpretation of Dreams ," Freud wrote that dreams are "disguised fulfillments of repressed wishes. While research has failed to demonstrate that the manifest content disguises the psychological significance of a dream, some experts believe that dreams play an important role in processing emotions and stressful experiences.
According to the activation-synthesis model of dreaming , which was first proposed by J. Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley, circuits in the brain become activated during REM sleep, which triggers the amygdala and hippocampus to create an array of electrical impulses. This results in a compilation of random thoughts, images, and memories that appear while dreaming.
When we wake, our active minds pull together the various images and memory fragments of the dream to create a cohesive narrative. In the activation-synthesis hypothesis, dreams are a compilation of randomness that appear to the sleeping mind and are brought together in a meaningful way when we wake.
In this sense, dreams may provoke the dreamer to make new connections, inspire useful ideas, or have creative epiphanies in their waking lives. According to the information-processing theory, sleep allows us to consolidate and process all of the information and memories that we have collected during the previous day.
Some dream experts suggest that dreaming is a byproduct, or even an active part, of this experience processing. This model, known as the self-organization theory of dreaming , explains that dreaming is a side effect of brain neural activity as memories are consolidated during sleep. During this process of unconscious information redistribution, it is suggested that memories are either strengthened or weakened.
According to the self-organization theory of dreaming, while we dream, helpful memories are made stronger, while less useful ones fade away. Research supports this theory, finding improvement in complex tasks when a person dreams about doing them. Studies also show that during REM sleep, low-frequency theta waves were more active in the frontal lobe, just like they are when people are learning, storing, and remembering information when awake.
Another theory about dreams says that their purpose is to help us solve problems. In this creativity theory of dreaming, the unconstrained, unconscious mind is free to wander its limitless potential while unburdened by the often stifling realities of the conscious world. In fact, research has shown dreaming to be an effective promoter of creative thinking.
Scientific research and anecdotal evidence back up the fact that many people do successfully mine their dreams for inspiration and credit their dreams for their big "aha" moments.
The ability to make unexpected connections between memories and ideas that appear in your dreams often proves to be an especially fertile ground for creativity.
Under the continuity hypothesis, dreams function as a reflection of a person's real life, incorporating conscious experiences into their dreams.
Rather than a straightforward replay of waking life, dreams show up as a patchwork of memory fragments. Still, studies show that non-REM sleep may be more involved with declarative memory the more routine stuff , while REM dreams include more emotional and instructive memories.
Under the continuity hypothesis, memories may be fragmented purposefully in our dreams as part of incorporating new learning and experiences into long-term memory. Still, there are many unanswered questions as to why some aspects of memories are featured more or less prominently in our dreams.
The primitive instinct rehearsal and adaptive strategy theories of dreaming propose that we dream to better prepare ourselves to confront dangers in the real world. The dream as a social simulation function or threat simulation provides the dreamer a safe environment to practice important survival skills.
While dreaming, we hone our fight-or-flight instincts and build mental capability for handling threatening scenarios. This theory suggests that practicing or rehearsing these skills in our dreams gives us an evolutionary advantage in that we can better cope with or avoid threatening scenarios in the real world.
This helps explain why so many dreams contain scary, dramatic, or intense content. The emotional regulation dream theory says that the function of dreams is to help us process and cope with our emotions or trauma in the safe space of slumber. Research shows that the amygdala, which is involved in processing emotions, and the hippocampus, which plays a vital role in condensing information and moving it from short-term to long-term memory storage, are active during vivid, intense dreaming.
This illustrates a strong link between dreaming, memory storage, and emotional processing. This theory suggests that REM sleep plays a vital role in emotional brain regulation.
It also helps explain why so many dreams are emotionally vivid and why emotional or traumatic experiences tend to show up on repeat. Research has shown a connection between the ability to process emotions and the amount of REM sleep a person gets.
Dreams are images, thoughts, or feelings that occur during sleep. Visual imagery is the most common , but dreams can involve all of the senses. Some people dream in color while others dream in black and white , and people who are blind tend to have more dream components related to sound, taste, and smell.
Studies have revealed diverse types of dream content, but some typical characteristics of dreaming include:. Although these features are not universal, they are found at least to some extent in most normal dreams.
Debate continues among sleep experts about why we dream. Different theories about the purpose of dreaming include:. Experts in the fields of neuroscience and psychology continue to conduct experiments to discover what is happening in the brain during sleep, but even with ongoing research, it may be impossible to conclusively prove any theory for why we dream.
On average, most people dream for around two hours per night. Dreaming can happen during any stage of sleep , but dreams are the most prolific and intense during the rapid eye movement REM stage. During the REM sleep stage, brain activity ramps up considerably compared to the non-REM stages, which helps explain the distinct types of dreaming during these stages.
By contrast, non-REM dreams tend to involve more coherent content that involves thoughts or memories grounded to a specific time and place. REM sleep is not distributed evenly through the night. The majority of REM sleep happens during the second half of a normal sleep period, which means that dreaming tends to be concentrated in the hours before waking up.
How to interpret dreams, and whether they have meaning at all, are matters of considerable controversy. Virtually all experts acknowledge that dreams can involve content that ties back to waking experiences although the content may be changed or misrepresented.
For example, in describing dreams, people often reference people who they recognize clearly even if their appearance is distorted in the dream. The meaning of real-life details appearing in dreams, though, is far from settled. Dreams can take on many different forms. Lucid dreams occur when a person is in a dream while being actively aware that they are dreaming. Vivid dreams involve especially realistic or clear dream content. Bad dreams are composed of bothersome or distressing content.
Recurring dreams involve the same imagery repeating in multiple dreams over time. Even within normal dreams, there are certain types of content that are especially identifiable. Among the most recognizable and common themes in dreams are things like flying, falling, being chased, or being unable to find a bathroom.
This definition is distinct from common usage that may refer to any threatening, scary, or bothersome dream as a nightmare.
Dreaming is part of healthy sleep and is generally considered to be completely normal and without any negative effects on sleep. Nightmares are the exception. Because nightmares involve awakenings, they can become problematic if they occur frequently. Distressing dreams may cause a person to avoid sleep, leading to insufficient sleep. When they do sleep, the prior sleep deprivation can induce a REM sleep rebound that actually worsens nightmares. This negative cycle can cause some people with frequent nightmares to experience insomnia as a chronic sleep problem.
For this reason, people who have nightmares more than once a week, have fragmented sleep, or have daytime sleepiness or changes to their thinking or mood should talk with a doctor.
A doctor can review these symptoms to identify the potential causes and treatments of their sleeping problem. For people who want to document or interpret dreams, remembering them is a key first step. The ability to recall dreams can be different for every person and may vary based on age. Remind yourself that dream recall is a priority.
In the lead-up to bedtime, tell yourself that you will remember your dreams, and repeat this mantra before going to sleep. People with frequent nightmares that disturb sleep should talk with a doctor who can determine if they have nightmare disorder or any other condition affecting their sleep quality.
Treatment for nightmare disorder often includes talk therapy that attempts to counteract negative thinking, stress, and anxiety that can worsen nightmares. Many types of talk therapy attempt to reduce worries or fears, including those that can arise in nightmares.
This type of exposure or desensitization therapy helps many patients reframe their emotional reaction to negative imagery since trying to simply suppress negative thoughts may exacerbate nightmares.
Another step in trying to reduce nightmares is to improve sleep hygiene , which includes both sleep-related habits and the bedroom environment. Healthy sleep hygiene can make your nightly sleep more predictable and may help you sleep soundly through the night even if you have bad dreams.
Examples of healthy sleep tips include:. Eric Suni has over a decade of experience as a science writer and was previously an information specialist for the National Cancer Institute. He is board-certified in psychiatry as well as sleep medicine. Learn more about the causes and underlying mechanisms of REM rebound, a phenomenon in which a person temporarily experiences more….
Microsleep is a phenomenon in which a person falls asleep for 15 seconds or less. Learn about the symptoms, risks,…. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies.
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