Did you know that your dreams could be warning signs for real problems, or that dreaming can help you learn?
Here are 9 interesting facts about dreams.
9. Dreams Can Be Warning Signs
For some people, a Rare sleep disorder causes them to act out their dreams with violent thrashes, kicks and screams.
Such violent dreams may be an early sign of brain disorders down the line, Including Parkinson's disease and dementia.
That’s pretty scary, especially if there is nothing we can do to prevent it.
In 2010, scientists published an article in the online journal Neurology stating that recent research suggests that The incipient stages of certain neurodegenerative disorders might begin decades before a person or doctor knows it.
And the warning signs appear in violent dreaming.
Greek philosopher Aristotle said that The beginnings of diseases that are about to visit the body are more evident in the sleeping state.
Thousands of years later, some scientists are beginning to agree, saying that when The immune system begins to detect an oncoming illness, be it a cold or Parkinson’s, physiological changes begin to occur.
Any dreams that happen could be a result of these changes.
For example, if you dream of choking, it May be because your throat is becoming inflamed.
Still sounds crazy?
Well, a report in 1923 claimed that a man had a recurring dream that a Rat was gnawing at the lower part of his abdomen.
It was later discovered the man suffered from an ulcer in that area.
8. Black and White Dreams
We usually associate dreams with movies and color.
However, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, 12% of people dream only in black and white.
But why?
Age appears to play a factor in this phenomenon.
People 25 or younger say they almost never dream in black and white, while people 55 and older claim to dream in color about 75% percent of the time.
But what does being older have to do with it?
One study suggests that People who were exposed to black and white televisions as kids have a greater likelihood of dreaming in black and white.
Hence why it happens to people over 55.
However, Another study says that shades of grey are not very exciting.
We find it easier to remember and associate with vivid colors.
Therefore, it’s completely possible that people dream in black and white more often but simply don’t remember.
7. Dreaming Can Help You Learn
If you’re studying for a test or trying to learn a new task, instead of cramming all night it might be better to just go to sleep.
In a 2010 study published in the journal Current Biology, researchers at Harvard Medical School found that dreams are the brain’s way of processing, integrating, and understanding new information.
The brain replays the patterns of activity it experienced during waking hours.
One psychologist called this a neural virtual reality.
One example of this can be seen in a Video created by researchers in a 2011 study of sleep disorders.
They taught dance moves to a group of patients suffering from conditions like sleepwalking.
These conditions allowed the sleepers to move in a way they normally would during their waking hours.
They then videoed their subjects during sleep.
The researchers were rewarded when One woman began doing the dance moves she learned earlier, all while lying asleep in bed.
Of course, most of us are not quite as physically energetic during sleep but our brains are super busy.
Scientists theorize that During sleep our brains extract what’s important from the day’s information and events and then integrates that data into the vast store of what we already know.
This is why some dreams are an Odd mix of fresh experiences and old memories.
It was reported that college students who dreamed about a computer maze task they learned earlier showed a 10-fold improvement in their ability to navigate the maze compared to participants who did not dream about the task.
Although I don’t know how you are supposed to control that.
6. Night Owls Have More Nightmares
Some of us can’t help but go to bed at 1 am even though we have to get up early the next day.
However, Light dreams are not one of the perks.
In 2011, researchers published an article in the journal Sleep and Biological Rhythms where they revealed that night owls are More likely than early-birds to experience nightmares.
In the study, 264 university students rated how often they experienced nightmares on a scale from "0," (meaning "never") to "4" (meaning "always").
Researchers found that the Night owls scored, on average, a 2.10, compared with the morning types who averaged a 1.23.
The researchers said the difference was a significant one, though they Aren’t sure what's causing a link between sleep habits and nightmares.
One theory points to the stress hormone cortisol.
Cortisol normally peaks in the morning right before we wake up, a time when people are more prone to be in REM, or dream, sleep.
If you’re Waking up shortly after the cortisol peaks nothing happens.
But if you’re still sleeping at that time, the cortisol rise could trigger vivid dreams or nightmares.
5. We Forget 90% of Our Dreams
You may not think that you’re a big dreamer because Most of us forget 95-99% of our dreams.
I used to think I never had dreams because never remember them, until I learned that that was impossible.
Why we don’t remember most of our dreams is still a mystery.
The famous psychologist Freud suggested that we forget them because They contain repressed thoughts and wishes.
L. Strumpell, a dream researcher of the same era as Freud, believed that several things contribute to our not being able to remember dreams.
He pointed to People’s tendency to forget many things upon waking, such as physical sensation.
He also theorized that many dream images are not intense enough to remember.
The strongest of his theories, though, is that we Traditionally learn and remember by association and repetition.
Dreams are always unique and vague.
Therefore, they are difficult to remember.
For example, if someone speaks a phrase to you that doesn't immediately click with anything in your experience, you Might need the person to repeat it in order to remember it or even understand it.
Since we can't go back to our dreams to experience something again, details that are out of our realm of experience Often disappear as soon as we open our eyes.
A current theory is that it’s simply because you’re not concentrating on the dreams while you’re asleep.
This makes sense because People who think dreams are important and are more interested in them are likelier to recall them.
Another theory is that our lack of recall is partly due to the hormone associated with memory Norepinephrine is turned off while we sleep, so our brain doesn’t actually encode our night visions into memories.
4. Body Paralysis is Normal
Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is a normal stage of sleep characterized by rapid movements of the eyes.
REM sleep in adult humans typically occupies 20-25% of total sleep or About 90-120 minutes of a night’s sleep.
My psychology teacher would tell us to wait for our parents to be in REM sleep before we tried to sneak out of the house.
That way during REM sleep, Their bodies would be paralyzed by powerful chemicals and they wouldn’t hear that creaky wooden step or the keys jingling.
The chemicals prevent the body from moving and acting out our dreams.
The idea of body paralysis can be kind of terrifying.
Sometimes it can go wrong and we can have natural paralysis while we are awake.
This is what we call sleep paralysis.
Several things can trigger this phenomenon: Stress, certain medications, sleep apnea and sleep deprivation.
People with anxiety and depression are also more likely to experience sleep paralysis.
3. Dreams Can Have Meaning
While it can be hard to believe that a dream about your mother, a circus, and a snowstorm can have any bearing on real life, There may be symbolism and potential meaning to be found in every dream, says Harvard-trained psychotherapist Jeffrey Sumber.
He says the meaning of our dreams Often relates to things we need to understand about ourselves and the world around us.
Instead of shrugging off strange dreams, think about how they make you feel.
It is the feeling that matters most since the dream Allows you to experience a broad range of emotions.
People have been trying to understand their dreams for centuries.
Sigmund Freud called dream analysis the “royal road to the unconscious” and Believed that a major function of dreams is wish fulfillment.
Today, a dream analysis is so popular, bookstores and the Internet are full of dictionaries that want to help you understand what your dreams mean.
2. Dream Logic is Logical
Your brain’s activity looks very different when you’re asleep.
First, your primary visual cortex is out of commission during sleep because your eyes are closed.
However, your secondary visual cortex, which Normally interprets outside visual stimuli, is still going strong as it tries to make sense of the images the rest of your brain is conjuring up.
Your hippocampus and fornix, which make up the tangle in the middle of your brain is The primary control center for your emotions.
During dreams, it lights up like a Christmas tree, which is why dreams are so emotionally charged, and often deal with feelings of imminent danger.
Meanwhile, The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is practically dormant.
That is why you can dream of yourself marrying your favorite celebrity, while on the moon, while battling aliens.
Therefore, the reason why your dreams are so strange is because the things that normally Govern reason, mitigate emotions and interpret visuals are all deactivated.
With that in mind, neurologically speaking it all makes sense.
1. You Can Feel Pain in Dreams
It has Never been proven that dreams themselves produce pain.
However, if the dreamer experiences pain while asleep, then that sensation translates into the dream.
Hundreds of dreamers have reported they Felt incredibly lifelike cuts, aches, burns, and gunshots.
Almost always, the pain disappears as soon as you wake up.
“Real” pain occurs when an External sensation from the waking world, like when your limbs feel like pins-and-needles, and that feeling gets into your dreams.
Often the people who feel real pain in their waking lives, such as Burn victims or people with back pain, experience pain in their dreams.
This can lead to nightmares where the dreamer tries to escape the source of their pain, literally and metaphorically.
Even within the comforts of your dream world, Sensations of physical pain can exist and feel real.
In short, pain transcends the barrier between waking and dreaming life, and shows up in our dreams relatively untransformed.
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