Ever had a really random dream that you can’t make any sense of? It is kind of funny that we just lie in our beds unconscious and our minds make up scenarios, for about a third of our lives. But are these scenarios as random as they seem or do they mean anything? And how come that we even have them at all?
Still, dreaming is kind of a scientific mystery which makes it even more interesting to dive into. Neuroscientists as well as psychologists are trying to figure it out – for now with limited success. Research is difficult because dreaming is very subjective and the brain is a complex construction. So, here is a short overview of what we know so far.
Why do we dream at all? There are several different theories on that. On the one hand, dreams could be a brain organizing system that clears and processes our thoughts, feelings and experiences, so we can order them, connect new and old thoughts to be ready for new ones on the next day. This also can lead to creative ideas or solutions for problems. On the other hand, there is a theory that widens this aspect with the idea of dreams being a preparation for the day in the way that if you are nervous about e.g. an exam you dream about it to get ready, more comfortable and train yourself in it, so that in the end you probably perform better in real life. In an evolutionary context this could have been for example training about how to act when meeting a predator, so in the real situation you could act faster or smarter. An interesting fact by the way: We know that everybody dreams and we also suspect that animals dream.
Some scientists however believe that dreams are just random memories or pictures resulting from brain activity while building and strengthening our memory.
There is the idea of a dreaming meta layer which was one of the first ideas regarding dreams in modern times, however it is now thought of as outdated. Carl Gustav Jung as well as Sigmund Freud saw dream as a communication of your unconsciousness with your consciousness, where mostly your secret wishes are communicated. Nevertheless, they opened up the whole world of analysing and interpreting your dreams. Obviously, if dreams are just random images, we don’t need to analyse them. However, looking at the other more recent theories we could still learn something through our dreams. How reliable are our dreams and how can we interpret them?
Our dreams can definitely show us something, but you need to decide for yourself how much trust you want to put into them, regarding the fact that scientists are really not sure about the purpose of dreaming. Sigmund Freud’s theory led to his dream interpretation based on symbols having special meanings. As well as his dream theory, this interpretation is thought of as outdated. Jung tried his interpretation with sometimes a more personal and not that general approach which gets closer to our ideas in today’s time.
Nowadays, it is more referred to as working with dreams than dream interpretation. It is now more clear that dreams process or mirror our day consciousness in a different kind of way. Dreams can therefore draw attention to things that stress or occupy us during daytime or give hints about unprocessed experiences. The interpretation is followingly really personal. If you try to analyse your dreams, try to give mostly the feelings of the dreams importance to break it down to this. Also, these insights don’t necessarily mean anything and they don’t need to be followed by an action or anything, but it can give you some ideas, problem solutions, draw your attention to something or just be interesting.
If you are now thinking: But how can I analyse my dreams if I never remember them? Don’t worry! There are some techniques with which you can train remembering your dreams. This includes doing a dream diary after waking up and being aware that you might dream before going to sleep.
In your dreams, things often feel and look more fatal or really confusing and random. To understand working with dreams and be able to better categorize and evaluate them, let’s think about what our brain does during dreaming. To begin with, there are different phases of sleep: There is the rapid-eye-movement phase (REM) in which you have the most detailed, intensive and emotionally sophisticated dreams. Mostly you remember the dreams from this phase because of that and due to the higher brain activity it doesn’t need that much time to wake up. Then, there is NREM1 (no-rem), the falling asleep phase which mostly includes surreal creativity and brain waves, NREM2, the light sleep phase, where you have longer and reflective dreams and NREM3, the deep sleep phase, in which dreams if remembered are short and without much detail. One sleep cycle lasts around 90min going through all the different phases, so in total you go through this cycle 4-6 times a night.
What explains some dream phenomena? The prefrontal cortex is a part of the brain that decides if things are logical or not. While this part of the brain is less active during dreams the visual cortex, responsible for visualisation is more awake than during the day. This logically concludes in confusing plots and fantasy pictures. Also, the part of the brain that is processing emotions is more active during dreams, which could explain the more drastic emotions as well as topics of our dreams. Then the part responsible for motoric is active during dreams too, which probably leads to dreams with a lot of movement.
Interesting to know is that while daydreaming the brain goes into a similar state as during dreaming while sleeping, so the creative and emotional part of the brain is more active.
And have you heard about lucid dreaming? It is where you know that you are dreaming and can change the dream. In this state the prefrontal cortex (Reminder: This is the one that is there for logical evaluation) is much more active than during regular dreaming, which leads to the discovery that you are dreaming. Some people just experience this, but you can also train it, for example, by having a ritual where you ask yourself if you are dreaming also in a wake state, so you also do it while dreaming. This can include having a ritual like reading a text (in a dream the letters change when looking at the text the second time). Lucid dreamers can really help scientists too, to discover more about dreaming. There was an experiment for example, where scientists were able to communicate with lucid dreamers while they were sleeping by them answering questions with body movements.
There are a lot of interesting facts, ideas and theories but also still a lot of questions and room for discoveries. Maybe with science advancing we will have more specific answers some day, but for now just enjoy your hopefully nice dreams with a little bit more knowledge about them.
Sleep well and have sweet dreams : )
Maike Seuffert
Sources:
https://www.swissflex.com/de/blog/die-kunst-des-traeumens
https://www.quarks.de/gesellschaft/psychologie/traeume-deuten-bedeutung
https://www.beobachter.ch/gesundheit/psychologie/was-uns-nachts-durch-den-kopf-geht-266786
https://www.dasgehirn.info/aktuell/frage-an-das-gehirn/warum-traeumen-wir
https://www.geo.de/geolino/mensch/5761-rtkl-schlaf-traeume-alles-schaeume
https://www.deutschlandfunknova.de/beitrag/traeumen-warum-machen-wir-das
https://www.psychologie-heute.de/leben/artikel-detailansicht/42073-traumdeutung.html
https://www.planet-wissen.de/gesellschaft/schlaf/traeume/traeume-traumforschung-100.html
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