Pace Paw Print

Media Credit: science.howstuffworks.com The five stages involved in the sleep cycle and the brain waves motions.

From being chased by a predator to having a sexy rendezvous, dreams can mean many different things to many different people. Some believe dreams are the brain's way of working through actual life conflicts, random brain impulses, and acts as a coping mechanism. None of this is certain though. Others wonder if interpreting dreams can have any meaning, or if it is even possible to learn from our dreams.

For certain, dreams are "images, thoughts, or emotions" that pass through the mind during sleep. As an individual sleeps, the brain goes through fives stages and a period called rapid eye movement (REM). The first stage of sleep involves very light sleep in which it is easy to be awaken. Gradually, individuals fall into a deeper sleep in the second, third, and fourth stages, with the third and fourth stage being the time of deepest sleep. In the fifth stage, REM is present.

At this time, heart rate, respirations, and blood pressure increase while the major muscles are thought to be "paralyzed", with the exception of possible twitching in the face, fingers, and legs. In this stage, most dreams occur. This has led some to believe that paralysis occurs to prevent individuals from acting out their dreams.

All five stages of sleep are cyclic, occurring several times throughout the night. Initially, the first REM sleep stage lasts for about ten minutes. Yet with each new cycle, there is less deep sleep and more REM sleep. Since the stages repeat continuously, so does dreaming. Even if dreams are not remembered, everyone dreams every night. Each dream lasts approximately five to twenty minutes.

Remembering dreams is a problem for many people. Either it is remembered upon awakening and then forgotten soon after, or it is not remembered until a stimulus similar to that in the dream is presented. Sometimes individuals wake up without ever remembering a dream occurred. Well-known psychologist Sigmund Freud proposed many theories on why remembering dreams is difficult. One theory is that dreams contain repressed thoughts that individuals are better off forgetting.

Another psychologist, Dr. L. Strumpell, believed that dreams were not intense enough, making them easy to forget. In addition to this, he theorized that individuals learn best from "association and repetition." For example, if someone doesn't understand an expression, they usually read or have another person repeat what is said in order to remember or understand it. Since dreams can be vague, some form of association and repetition needs to occur in order for it to be remembered. Given that the exact same dreams do not occur multiple times, it is difficult to go back and remember what occurred in the dream.

Similar dreams do occur, however, from time to time during the course of a couple of days or throughout a lifetime. Possibilities for this include trauma from the past or some conflict that has not yet been solved. In this case, dreams continue to occur until the problem is solved. As with trauma, these dreams tend to decrease over time.

One study conducted in the United Kingdom showed that sleeping on the right-side and left-side of the body affects dreams. 63 people were included in the study: 41 were placed on the right-side sleeping position, and the remaining 22 were placed on their left-sides. During an assessment that consisted of an interview based on "dream recall frequency, vividness, bizarreness, nightmare frequency, and dream emotions", the numbers differed substantially.

14.6 percent of right-sided sleepers in the study reported nightmares, while 40.9 percent of the left-sided sleepers reported nightmares. However, right-sided sleepers had a reduced quality and pattern of sleep.

Dreams are, indeed, a mystery that we still have much to learn about. Their ambiguity has brought about an infinite search for questions: Do they all mean something? Does it have any relevance in real life? Do they represent things that will occur in the future? We may never know.

Sources

Frost, Bill. Sleep, Dreams, and Insomnia. 3 Dec. 2007. Changing States. 3 Dec. 2007

Obringer, Lee. How Dreams Work. (n.d.) HowStuffWorks: It's Good to Know. 3 Dec 2007

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