You may not realize it, but 1/3 of a person’s life is spent sleeping. When we sleep, everyone dreams, and each of our dreams has its own meaning. It’s just a matter of what they mean.
The science of dreams really hasn’t made much progress, so there isn’t much data. But fortunately, thanks to the development of technology, science has been able to look at brain activity when people are fast asleep, and thereby unlocking clues about the mystery of our dreams. .
Your dreams are often very messy, you may only realize it after waking up.
Surely we will sometimes have dreams that are so absurd, so strange that when we wake up, no one understands what it means. Why? Science has several explanations here.
Each of us has a unique dream pattern, because the emotions and events we encounter every day are not the same. While sleeping, the brain will continue to work, allocating the short-term and long-term memories we encounter during the day. Not only that, the brain will compare them with each other, reconstruct and thereby create confusion and form strange dreams.
All dreams occur during the rapid eye movement (REM) phase , which lasts about 10-20 minutes and repeats several times during a sleep. During this stage, levels of serotonin and norepinephrine, two hormones responsible for logic and concentration, decrease. Because of this, your dreams can be so messy, so out of the ordinary that you only realize it after waking up.
Nightmares are a way of “training” the nervous system.
What about nightmares? Why do you dream of the apocalypse, dream of being chased by… zombies, or dream of falling into a bottomless abyss?
Experts from the University of Geneva (Switzerland) and Wisconsin (USA) have come together to find some solutions to this story. According to them, this is a way of “training” the nervous system, to help a person be able to cope with negative emotions in reality. The emotions encountered in the dream will help the body prepare in advance, to respond to possible stress in the future.
Specifically, the experts monitored the brain activity of 18 candidates while they were sleeping, using an electroencephalogram system. Candidates woke up several times during the night, asked about the dream they were having at the time, and whether it was a nightmare. As a result, they found two areas responsible for such dreams, the occipital lobe and the cerebral cortex.
Interestingly, both of these areas are activated if people feel anxious or afraid of something. Like the occipital lobe, it is responsible for assessing emotions and activates as soon as we feel anxious. The other is responsible for preparing an appropriate response and controlling our behavior when in danger. And especially, people who often have nightmares are better able to cope with the negative things in real life.
Until now, some experts have somewhat analyzed the meaning of the dreams we encounter – often related to real-life problems. For example, a dream of being chased by someone could mean that you have an unresolved problem. Dreaming of free fall is because you are under uncontrollable pressure. But overall, this is not the final conclusion, and science needs to do more research to know that.