As we sleep, we experience an interesting phenomenon called dreaming. It’s extraordinary because it serves as a window into your unconscious mind, letting us see images and even live a fleeting life we otherwise couldn’t while awake.

You may already know that people experience them, but have you ever wondered what dreams mean and why or how they affect sleep? Read on to learn more about dreaming.

Dreams are visual images and stories that the mind conceives during sleep. They can be fun, entertaining, upsetting, bizarre, or frightening. They can provoke strong emotions, depending on their content.

Dreaming is a universal human experience, but it is unique for everyone. For instance, it usually involves visual imagery but can also include all of the senses. Some people also dream in color, while others in black and white.

Sixty-five percent of dream elements come from waking life experiences. This is why we may encounter our friends and family and even complete the activities we usually do during our state of consciousness in our dreams. Because of this, dreams are said to be the “reactivation of daily life.”

Due to their unique nature, dreams are challenging to study in a laboratory. This is why much of them remains a mystery. However, sleep experts came up with these theories to answer why do we dream:

Dreaming could be a way to get rid of unnecessary or erroneous information. As we dream, our brains experience an instant replay where events during our waking lives get reviewed and analyzed.

According to sleep experts, dreams may be a way to process memory and consolidate information collected during the day. They transfer memories from short-term to long-term storage. As a result, they clear the mind, help with informational recall, and offer a fresh start for the brain before the next waking day.

Dreams may also be simply a by-product of sleep. They don’t necessarily have an essential purpose or insightful meaning.

Do you also wonder which stage of sleep do you dream? Or do you dream in deep sleep?

The fact is it occurs at any time during sleep. However, the most vivid dreaming takes place during rapid eye movement (REM), the sleep cycle dream stage. Interestingly, some individuals may experience a phenomenon called “lucid dreaming” where they become aware that they are dreaming.

REM sleep takes place around 90 minutes after falling asleep and lasts 10 minutes. The brain is the most active during this stage, so dreams during this phase are usually more vivid or bizarre. On the contrary, the ones during the non-REM stage tend to have more coherent content.

On average, dream duration typically lasts for two hours per night. Also, most REM sleep dreams occur during the second half of a regular sleep session. In other words, dream time is usually hours before we wake up.

According to psychology, dreaming can be categorized into three main types described briefly below.  

This may include daydreaming or dreaming during light sleep controlled by the subconscious mind.

Triggered by external stimuli, these are images you have brought by environmental conditions such as temperature, aroma, and texture.

For example, someone having night sweats may dream of bathing under the blazing heat of the sun. Meanwhile, snuggling under soft and luxurious duvet may make people dream of stepping on the clouds.

These may be enforced by one’s desires and impulses. For instance, your crush or loved ones are most likely to appear in your sleep than complete strangers.

Dreams were discovered to be helpful to health. They offer these benefits:

Dreaming may force us to deal with imagined experiences while asleep. Because of this, it may help rehearse feelings in different imagined contexts. In effect, it manages emotions and prepares the brain to face challenges and threats in waking life.

The theta brain waves during REM sleep and dreams consolidate memories. The more we dream about emotionally intense experiences, the better we learn to process difficult experiences while awake. In short, dreams promote trauma recovery and mood regulation.

It’s no secret that sleep helps retain new knowledge. However, it’s not common knowledge that dreaming helps improve memory.

In a study conducted by PubMed Central, participants were asked to play a virtual reality maze and tested to recall things in the maze. Half of the participants fell asleep, and they performed better during the test than the others. Some also dreamed of the maze, which allowed them to improve ten times faster than the rest of the respondents.

The dream process may help manage depression symptoms. A study involving divorced women with untreated clinical depression who dreamed of their ex-spouses or relationship scored better on mood tests.

They were also more likely to recover from depression. While dreams on their own weren’t enough to solve their problem, they gave clarity to the participants’ perspectives.

One of the common sleep myths is that dreaming means bad sleep, but that isn’t true. In fact, it is part of healthy sleep.

Dreams are linked to enhanced memory, thinking, and emotional processing. Because of this, experts believe that they reflect or contribute to better sleep quality.

This phenomenon can sometimes affect sleep or mental health. This is especially true for dreams involving traumatic or disturbing elements.

This terror episode that causes distress and awakens sleepers from sleep can be considered a nightmare or a night terror. Sometimes, a bad dream may be accompanied by sleep paralysis. Since it can make it more difficult to move between sleep cycles or go back to sleep, it may influence daytime thinking, mood, or energy level.

Dreams are intriguing because they are mysterious. While dreaming is not fully understood, many people use dream analysis to determine the meanings behind them. 

Here are some common dream themes and their possible interpretations:

Whether you want to sleep more and dream less or attract good dreams, it all boils down to getting quality sleep. This also helps in keeping nightmares away and remembering dreams better. Some believe that poor dream recall is a sign of inadequate rest. 

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