The human body, despite thousands of years of research, has not been studied, and even experienced world-famous scientists cannot explain some phenomena. The visions that come to every person at night remain a mystery to professors and academicians. There are many hypotheses about why dreams occur, and to accurately explain this feature is not only difficult, but also impossible, but there are interesting versions that will allow us to partially unravel the mystery of dreams.
What types of sleep phases exist?
Questions about where dreams come from have troubled people for thousands of years. Rarely does anyone even come close to the correct hypothesis. There is only one reason here - even scientists have not yet determined why a person sees colorful, tempting pictures or terrible nightmares during a night's rest.
The exact reason why dreams occur has not been determined, but scientists were able to find out through long-term observations that there are two types of night sleep - deep and fast. They are very different and have their own characteristics, which are quite interesting. The phase of dreams determines whether a person will remember in the morning what he dreamed.
Many people believe that a person does not have dreams if they are not remembered, but this is not true - people simply forget what they saw.
Fast
REM sleep always has inexplicable effects on the body. One of the phenomena is a sharp decrease in hormone levels, an increase in blood pressure on the main organ - the brain. This immediately affects dreams - if you wake up a sleeping person and ask what he saw, the remembered plot will be retold in detail.
The peculiarity of REM sleep is that it lasts for half an hour, rarely a little longer. These periods occur during the night. Often the fast phase lasting up to an hour occurs in the morning hours, then the person remembers vivid visions.
Scientists have proven that we dream almost every day, but not all dreams are remembered. Nothing depends on the phase here - the person simply forgot what tempting or unwanted pictures were visited at night.
Deep
In addition to the fast phase, which is short and takes up 20-25% of the night's rest, there is another type that lasts the rest of the time. During this period, a person relaxes, rests, and gains strength for the next day. Consciousness and body freeze, functions lose activity. Thanks to this, dreams do not occur - the brain refuses to show tempting or scary pictures.
Scientists claim that the body itself adjusts to loss of mobility, otherwise it is quite possible that a person will begin to repeat the movements or processes he has seen and will be injured or commit undesirable actions.
Fast and slow varieties alternate, and the body freezes for about an hour. It has been revealed that, unlike important organs or the body, the eyes continue to function. During the active phase, they move, as if a person is carefully watching something; during a deep immersion in sleep, the pupils freeze in place.
Some scientists believe that this is the reason for dreams and through the eyes of the sleeper he sees different pictures that resemble reality and are realistic.
Who has vivid, memorable dreams?
- People with an agile psyche and vivid perception. These people are called dreamers. Such people are interested in everything, and they invent unfinished stories or events. They are extremely rarely able to relax completely, but in their sleep the brain continues to give them continuations of various stories.
- Intense mental work forces the brain to think out in a dream what is hidden from consciousness during the day. If you start having dreams often, it means that in your real life there are too many different stimuli that excite your mind.
- People of creative professions continue to create and create in their dreams. If you are one of those people, don’t ask why you started having dreams, but try to transfer the scenes you saw to your work.
- Melancholic people, who constantly feel sorry for themselves, are also very impressionable people and feed themselves with fears and doubts. This is reflected in dreams, and not always pleasant ones.
- People who have carefully guarded secrets that cannot be discussed with anyone have frequent and memorable dreams. If you are wondering why you started having dreams, try to figure it out, perhaps you have something unspoken, unshared.
Why do I have dreams?
There are many hypotheses about dreams, origins and causes, and no one will be able to determine what factors provoke the appearance of night images. Psychologists say that dreams are a continuation of daytime events. During the night's rest, a person experiences what happens during the day.
If the day was filled with pleasant incidents, dreams will bring positivity and peace. Troubles and unwanted events will result in negative images or nightmares.
The fears and phobias that a person suffers from in real life will certainly be reflected at night - this means that the brain is working hard on these problems and even during rest it shows negative emotions.
It’s easy to verify the likelihood of a common hypothesis - you can look at the information in the dream book. Often it coincides with the pictures seen and explains why such unpleasant pictures were dreamed.
Images of human desires
One of the hypotheses voiced by scientists who have devoted their lives to studying the behavior of the human body during a night's rest is that the pictures seen are the result of dreams. The subconscious mind indicates secret or hidden desires that could not be realized in reality.
From a psychological point of view, this version seems quite true. Other explanations are not so plausible, although many believe that what they saw at night does not correspond to the situation in real life, but on the contrary - the person is not going to fulfill his desires.
Features of the brain
Recently, a theory was presented that the brain:
- independently gets rid of unnecessary information seen during the night;
- helps to remember or forget dreams;
- leaves pleasant pictures in memory, sends nightmares or unwanted events to the subconscious;
- helps to make a decision over which a person was tormented in real life, sending corresponding dreams.
Another version is that the brain processes situations that occur throughout the day (week, month, year).
It often happens that after a night's rest a person easily understands his mistakes made during this time and finds a way to correct it.
Permanent activation
Zhang Jie, a famous Chinese psychologist, put forward his own version of how the brain works. The doctor's hypothesis is that an organ located in the head and responsible for all processes in the body sends nerve impulses that accelerate during REM sleep.
The brain is not idle at this time - it systematizes pleasant or negative memories. They move from short-term to long-term memory throughout the night. Some of the memories are partially activated, due to this visions appear that the awakened person remembers well or partially forgets in the morning.
Waiting for a threat
Pictures often appear throughout the night that alarm a person, preparing him for unpleasant situations or danger. This ability of the human body has been known for thousands of years - in ancient times, it was by such signs that future events were determined that they tried to avoid or prevent.
Even now they are trying to use the information that was seen during the night to prevent trouble. It is believed that there is no need to pay much attention - the rhythm of life, human abilities, and body functions have changed. There are exceptions, but only among people who have special abilities to see the future, and this often happens during the night with the help of realistic pictures.
Natural selection of thoughts
Mark Blancher, a psychologist from America, believes that during the night the brain independently simulates different situations, after which it selects emotional incidents. The life of many people consists of these events dictated by dreams, although often the person does not even know about it.
With the help of scientists, it was possible to determine that some dreams are lucid - the sleeper can not only remember the picture, but also control the events occurring in the vision.
To do this, you do not need to have special abilities - after short training, everyone will be able to manage incidents visible throughout the night. If you bring a person out of this state suddenly, with a sharp awakening, you can cause mental trauma - the brain will not have time to readjust to reality.
What is sleep?
Sleep (more precisely, a dream) is an individual reaction of the brain to verbal, visual and emotional images with which it had to come into contact during the day. In the past, many versions of the origin of night visions have been expressed:
- sleep was considered a state close to death, and dreams were considered to be pictures seen by the soul flying away at night;
- the dream was explained by poisoning from poisons accumulated in the body during the day; dreams were considered hallucinations caused by this poisonous substance.
Opinions from the greatest minds
Gradually, the idea of dreams changed, but many mysteries remained, in which many outstanding people were interested.
Great thinkers of the past tried to explain the nature of dreams, the reasons for their occurrence and meaning, based on their own understanding of this amazing physiological process.
Aristotle believed that only in a dream does a person find harmony with the world around him, and his soul acquires the ability to foresee the future. Hippocrates argued that whoever knows the meaning of the signs that appear in a dream will understand how they influence real life. Carl Jung, thinking about the nature of dreams, came to the idea that in these visions a person approaches something true, universal.
Scientific explanations
Scientists have tried to find their explanation for the pictures that a person sees in a dream. According to experts, when going to bed, a person enters a state of rest, but his brain continues to analyze the huge amount of information received per day, per week, per month in various ways. As a result, until a kind of systematization of data takes place, it is intertwined in the mind in a bizarre way, creating incredible pictures.
Psychologists' opinions
Numerous tests, studies, and surveys have shown that dreams are associated with a person’s psychological state. Carefree, positive dreams are dreamed by those who are happy and free in life. Nightmares haunt those who are susceptible to phobias and fears. Mental problems also lead to dark black and white dreams.
Sigmund Freud adhered to the same theory, who believed that a person’s dreams depend entirely on his subconscious. Since dreams are the result of brain activity, they can be influenced through hypnosis and meditation. In a dream, the subconscious is not controlled, but the result of preliminary work can be a change in nightmares to positive ones.
Why do I often have nightmares?
Where do dreams come from, in which frightening and unwanted events occur, and is it possible to avoid nightmares - these questions visit every person who has at least once seen a terrible picture during the night. Scientists believe there are several reasons:
- emotional response to important events in real life;
- feelings about something;
- the brain does not have time to process information received during daytime wakefulness;
- an abundance of negativity in life;
- mental problems requiring specialist help.
Often, during deep sleep, the brain independently sorts unwanted pictures and makes a person forget about them. In the morning, the person who wakes up remembers that he had a nightmare, but cannot reproduce the events experienced during the night’s dream.
Why do you dream about loved ones?
The reasons why loved ones dream can be divided into two categories. The first will include scientific justification for the occurrence of dreams with friends and loved ones. The second category includes the interpretation of dreams by esotericists. It can be classified as mystical and not entirely explainable.
If we consider the scientific basis for why people to whom we have attachment appear in dreams, then everything turns out very simple. In ordinary life, a person always thinks about who he cares about. The brain processes information about specific people. At the moment of sleep, brain processes continue their activity, but now the subconscious mind works with them. That is, what worries a person most, what he thinks about, is what he dreams about.
Well, if you listen to the interpretation of the esotericist, then it turns out that close and dear people on a subconscious level send various signals to the sleeper. If you interpret this signal correctly, you can make the right decision or avoid trouble.
Do you have prophetic dreams?
Psychologists have divided opinions about whether it is possible to see a vision that suggests what to do in the future or change events. Some believe that a person with a special gift and ability may well see events that will occur during the day, week, or year. Others are sure that the pictures seen at night, explaining upcoming events and warning of danger in reality, are a coincidence.
There are several hypotheses about whether dreams should be believed. Scientists do not advise trusting your feelings if you have dreams that warn of future events - it is quite difficult to understand the peculiarities of the brain, so it is not worth asserting that it sends true pictures of danger.
Who doesn't dream and why?
- A person who constantly lacks sleep stops reacting normally to the world around him, and dreams have nowhere to come from. When the opportunity to rest arises, sleep is heavy and deep.
- People who do not have a specific daily routine and, most importantly, proper rest. It is unlikely that they will have dreams, even if real life is very busy.
- People living in a strict regime of eating, working, resting, and sleeping will not allow the world of calm created in reality to be replaced by emotions that will worry or will not allow you to sleep peacefully, without dreams.
- If a person uses modern sleeping pills, he is unlikely to ask why he started having dreams. Dreams have no place in deep medicated sleep.
- Balanced, good-natured people, devoid of curiosity and envy, are low-emotional and have no reason to process information at night. A healthy nervous system requires dreamless sleep.
Why are dreams forgotten?
Why do you dream of vivid pictures, but by the morning it is impossible to remember what exactly you dreamed at night? Scientists have worked a lot on this problem and can confidently say that the reason here lies in man. Some psychologists voice the idea that the brain independently determines what can be allowed to be remembered in the morning, and which dreams should be ignored and forced to go deep into the subcortex of consciousness.
All images arise by chance due to brain impulses, and the stronger the signal, the higher the likelihood of remembering what you saw. There are many advantages to this - unwanted incidents that threaten to develop in life are completely forgotten, without disturbing the person in real life.
You should not trust dreams and rely on information seen during the night - many factors can influence visions, so the embodiment of pictures in life is a coincidence. This is especially true for unpleasant dreams - the brain can worry, independently recreate unwanted images, and prepare for events expected in the near future. It is better to treat dreams as an integral part of a person, for which there is no explanation, and simply enjoy pleasant visions, banishing unwanted images from memory.
