SCIENCE BEHIND DREAMS
Why Do Dreams Happen?
Today I will be explaining how and why dreams happen.
The brain is a very complex organ and yet we have so much more to understand and discover about it to this day I’m going to explain this concept in the best way that I understand but first let’s cover the basics first of all what is a dream a whole bunch of images sounds and various sensations that occur when a person is asleep.
We all have experienced dreaming before. Have you ever had a night where you’ve had a really interesting dream only to realize that you woke up a few moments later wishing that your dream was longer? There’s a certain time when dreaming starts and in order to understand this we have to go over the sleep cycle:
Stage 1 of the sleep cycle is called interim sleep, which is your light you are still fully conscious and can easily be awakened.
Stage 2 is the one you fall asleep and your brain is resting but you’re not in a deep sleep just yet this is when you have a decrease in body temperature.
Stage 3 is your deep sleep stage and you will essentially even come unconscious.
Stage 4 is your heavy deep sleep stage and this is when you have rhythmic breathing but limited muscle activity finally the last stage is called the REM, also known as the rapid eye movement stage. This is when your brain becomes active and this is the stage 1 dreaming occurs the stage feels long but is actually very short. So now that we understand the basic foundation of a dream you may be wondering how do dreams actually happen. First of all when we go into the REM stage, the whole brain becomes active when this happens everything is controlled by something called the reticular activating system. the reticular activating system is a procedure where nerve pathways connect two main points of the brain. Balancing the level of overall consciousness. After the reticular activating system has occurred or RATS as I like to call it, the limbic system releases a hormone called amygdala. This hormone controls your emotions and when it is released into the dream it makes so much more intense as a result another part of the brain called cortex located in the back of brain controls what actually happens in the dream.
I made a short theory that every time I am about to die or hurt myself in some dreams I wake up what if this means that since the cortex is aware of this it controls the content by stopping the dream and waking you up — technically protect you. This reminds me of when my teacher was talking about how you could essentially bite your finger off like a carrot however the brain stops you from doing this and sends pain messages to stop you from hurting yourself. Now you may also be wondering well how come dreams are so bizarre the reason we have all these crazy dreams is because some parts of the brain are not fully active. Therefore, when active parts and non fully active parts work together it may not be the most well organized dream. For example you can be randomly eating cake at home and then ride a camel in Africa in a next second, it all comes down to one question why do we dream there are many theories I have come up with.
Let’s talk about a few , for example have you ever been stressed or thought about something all day only to realize that you had a dream about it later that night, for example if you are anxious about a test you may have a dream about your teacher chasing you or the test paper this is because when the brain becomes active during the REM stage subconscious does as well and all of the thoughts and sights that occur your subconscious and you think about all they are transferred to your dreams as well.
Everybody is different we don’t always dream for the same reason e.g.
1. some people they have dreams because their brain is recharging certain brain chemicals like neurotransmitters
2. there are some people where dreaming is actually a process of problem-solving for example if they have been focusing on a problem for a long time they may actually get the answer in their dream.
I hope I could help you gain some knowledge about dreams under five minutes.