Deep inside the temporal lobe of the brain, the hippocampus has a central role in our ability to remember, imagine and dream. Our most vivid dreams are a remarkable replication of reality, combining disparate objects, actions and perceptions into a richly detailed hallucinatory experience.
The activation-synthesis theory of dreams offers a neurobiological explanation of dream development. According to the activation-synthesis theory, dreams are the result of the cerebral cortex's attempt to make sense of the neural activity occurring in other parts of the brain during sleep.
The evidence points toward an important function of dreams: to help us take the sting out of our painful emotional experiences during the hours we are asleep, so that we can learn from them and carry on with our lives.
The whole brain is active during dreams, from the brain stem to the cortex. Most dreams occur during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. This is part of the sleep-wake cycle and is controlled by the reticular activating system whose circuits run from the brain stem through the thalamus to the cortex.
Vallat and a research team found that people who frequently remember dreams have more white matter in a region of the brain known as the medial prefrontal cortex, which is a brain region linked with processing information about oneself.
“Since dreams are thought to primarily occur during REM sleep, the sleep stage when the MCH cells turn on, activation of these cells may prevent the content of a dream from being stored in the hippocampus – consequently, the dream is quickly forgotten.”
Lucid dreaming is a fascinating phenomenon in which a person is aware that they are asleep and dreaming. Those who are more adept at lucid dreaming are able to control the action and content of their dreams to varying degrees.
Healthy dreaming may be indicative of quality sleep that facilitates sharper thinking, better mood, and overall health. People who remember their dreams often show higher levels of creativity. View Source .
Lots of theories have been offered: dreams are used to regulate emotion, like dealing with fears; to consolidate memory, replaying things from your day to help remember them; to solve, or on the other hand to forget, real-world problems. Another theory suggests they help the brain predict its own future states.
Deep inside the temporal lobe of the brain, the hippocampus has a central role in our ability to remember, imagine and dream.
"Dreams are often about identity, because we're figuring out who we are and what we need, and the beliefs and perspectives we hold," says Wallace. "If you feel unfulfilled, undervalued or not the person you want to be in waking life, your dreams will often reflect that.
Sometimes the dreams we have seem so real. Most of the emotions, sensations, and images we feel and visualize are those that we can say we have seen or experienced in real life. This is because the same parts of the brain that are active when we are awake are also active when we are in certain stages of our sleep.
Carl Jung took a more rigorous approach, explaining dreams as a sort of “shaped energy,” inchoate emotions or thoughts released by the deep subconscious and entrained into narratives by higher regions of the brain.
The results indicate that although pain is rare in dreams, it is nevertheless compatible with the representational code of dreaming. Further, the association of pain with dream content may implicate brainstem and limbic centers in the regulation of painful stimuli during REM sleep.
Remembering your dreams doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how restful your sleep is, Dr. Harris says. Instead, recalling those dreams is a lot more likely to depend on a number of factors, from your current level of stress to the medication you're taking.
Most people need seven to eight hours of sleep to feel well-rested and energized. Sleep without dreams is the most restful sleep. Scratching your head at the last one?
Dreaming sleep is a deep stage of sleep with intense brain activity in the forebrain and midbrain. It is characterized by the ability of dreams to occur, along with the absence of motor function with the exception of the eye muscles and the diaphragm.
As dreams are all about the self—your feelings and behaviors—if you're dreaming about a specific person in your life, then it's likely there's some aspect of them that is currently at work in your life, Loewenberg explains. Perhaps you both share a behavioral trait that is currently being activated.
Dreams can be so realistic that it can be hard to tell if we're awake or asleep. And sometimes, we wake up in the middle of a dream and wonder if it's possible to go back to sleep and pick up where we left off. It is possible to resume a dream, but it requires a certain focus and concentration.
The longest dreams—up to 45 minutes long—usually occur in the morning. There are certain things you can do before you go to bed to control your dreams.
Our brain is not fully developed when we are born—it continues to grow and change during this important period of our lives. And, as our brain develops, so does our memory.
It is generally accepted that no-one can recall their birth. Most people generally do not remember anything before the age of three, although some theorists (e.g. Usher and Neisser, 1993) argue that adults can remember important events - such as the birth of a sibling - when they occurred as early as the age of two.
If you don't remember your dreams but are getting good sleep, you don't have anything to worry about. If you don't remember dreaming and feel tired during the day, or like your quality of sleep is worse than usual, you might be getting less REM sleep than you usually do, which means you're not dreaming as much.