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ishan.maheshwari

We dream. Why?

We asked some kids this question, and this is what they said:

Anisha, 16, says: "I think that we dream because our brains are sort of letting what happened during the day sink in, and so we see it in our heads, kind of like remembering it."

Rupesh, 15, thinks that: "We have dreams because we think of something in our mind and when we wake up we have stories to share with other people."

People have been trying to discover the truth about dreams for centuries, and the simplest answer is this: dreams are basically stories and pictures our brains create when we're asleep.

Most dreams happen during the times of night when we are most deeply asleep, and our eyes begin to move around quickly under our eyelids. This may sound creepy, but it's totally normal, and it's called Rapid Eye Movement, or REM. Dream researchers used to think that REM was the only time people dream, but now most experts agree that we can dream at just about any time of the night. Maybe REM dreams are just our most memorable and realistic dreams.

The experts disagree on just why we dream. Here are some of their theories:

Some say dreams don't really have a purpose; they're just one of those things that seem to happen for no reason.
Some say dreams are our brains "twitching." Because our brains are basically huge collections of information, pictures, and feelings, when they "twitch" in the night, all kinds of strange things come out and get thrown into dreams.
Some say dreams are a way to process all the events and emotions of the day, and are important to our mental and physical health. It's sort of like when you leave a computer on, it sometimes runs programs to clean up its hard drive. Our brains are always "on" even when we're asleep, so dreaming could be a time for them to do their own version of cleaning up the "hard drive."
Other experts say that dreams exist to solve specific problems in our lives. Let's say you give a computer an incredibly complex math problem, and it has to take a few seconds before it comes up with the answer. This could be what dreaming is about, except instead of solving a big math problem, our sleeping brains are trying to solve emotional issues. The stories and images we experience as dreams are like way-out versions of our emotions, and our brains are working through those emotions.

For centuries, we've tried to figure out just why our brains play these nightly shows for us. Early civilizations thought dream worlds were real, physical worlds that they could enter only from their dream state. Researchers continue to toss around many theories about dreaming. Those theories essentially fall into two categories:

The idea that dreams are only physiological stimulations
The idea that dreams are psychologically necessary

The physiological theory centers upon how our body, specifically our brains, function during the REM phase of sleep. Proponents of this theory believe that we dream to exercise the synapses, or pathways, between brain cells, and that dreaming takes over where the active and awake brain leaves off. When awake, our brains constantly transmit and receive messages, which course through our billions of brain cells to their appropriate destinations, and keep our bodies in perpetual motion. Dreams replace this function.

Two underpinning physiological facts go towards supporting this theory of dreams. The first lies in the fact that the first two or so years of ones life, the most formative ones for learning, are also the ones in which the most REM sleep occurs. It follows that during this time of the greatest REM sleep, we experience the greatest number of dreams. The second physiological fact that lends credence to this theory is that our brain waves during REM sleep, as recorded by machines measuring the brain's electrical activity, are almost identical in nature to the brain waves during the hours we spend awake. This is not the case during the other phases of sleep.

Psychological theorists of dreams focus upon our thoughts and emotions, and speculate that dreams deal with immediate concerns in our lives, such as unfinished business from the day, or concerns we are incapable of handling during the course of the day. Dreams can, in fact, teach us things about ourselves that we are unaware of.

Interesting Points

One third of our lives is spent sleeping.
In your lifetime, you would've spent about 6 years of it dreaming. That is more than 2,100 days spent in a different world.
Dreams have been here as long as mankind. Back in the Roman Era, striking and significant dreams were submitted to the Senate for analysis and interpretation.
Everybody dreams. EVERYBODY! Simply because you do not remember your dream does not mean that you did not dream.
Dreams are indispensable. A lack of dream activity can mean protein deficiency or a personality disorder.
We dream on average of one or two hours every night. And we often even have 4-7 dreams in one night.
Blind people do dream. Whether visual images will appear in their dream depends on whether they where blind at birth or became blind later in life. But vision is not the only sense that constitutes a dream. Sounds, tactility, and smell become hypersensitive for the blind and their dreams are based on these senses.
Five minutes after the end of the dream, half the content is forgotten. After ten minutes, 90% is lost.
The word dream stems from the Middle English word, dreme which means "joy" and "music".
Men tend to dream more about other men, while women dream equally about men and women.
Studies have shown that our brain waves are more active when we are dreaming than when we are awake.
Dreamers who are awakened right after REM sleep, are able to recall their dreams more vividly than those who slept through the night until morning.
People who are giving up smoking have longer and more intense dreams.
Toddlers do not dream about themselves. They do not appear in their own dreams until the age of 3 or 4.
If you are snoring, then you cannot be dreaming.
Nightmares are common in children, typically beginning at around age 3 and occurring up to age 7-8.

hope you find that interesting !!

thanx for the patience.

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