Dreams are an important and necessary process that protects us from the development of psychological problems. The famous psychiatrist Sigmund Freud called dreams the "royal road to the unconscious", yet his ideas about dreams and their relationship with the subconscious remain controversial. He believed that strange images from dreams can be interpreted as symbols that represent certain conflicts in our lives, most often of a sexual nature.
Of course, Freud's theory that the main function of dreams is to fulfill our desires has not been accepted by all experts, but there is a consensus that people often solve their problems in dreams that cause us hardships in the waking world. Dreams are also important because they help the brain process and integrate the massive mass of sensory information we absorb every day. Namely, the subconscious classifies and organizes all data, and dreams then use it to help us with learning processes and problem solving. So how interesting are our dreams and what do these interesting facts mean for us?
Read interesting facts about dreams.
10. Night courses.
Terrible schedules and the constant bombardment of information from the Internet often make us feel that we will not be able to cram anything into our brains. However, researchers continue to gather evidence that dreams help us absorb things we've learned during the day. A few hours of uninterrupted peace allows the subconscious mind to "turn around" and review our new work duties or our difficulties in learning a new language in our spare time. Some research shows that studying before bed increases the chances that we'll dream about the study material we're trying to master.
9. We all dream.
Each of us dreams, even if we don't remember. We spend two hours or more a night dreaming. The theory that we only dream in REM ("Rapid Eye Movement") parts of the sleep cycle has been dropped - new data show that we can also dream in other parts of the cycle, as well as that our body requires a certain amount of REM sleep and our most vivid and convincing dreams occur precisely during these short periods of deep sleep. Sometimes it is possible to wake up and when we try to go back to sleep, we can dream the same dream or its continuation. Experiments show that maintaining the same body position in which we woke up can help retain dreams in our short-term memory.
8. Cheating in a dream.
Studies show that the most common dream is that our partner is cheating. It is important to keep in mind that this is probably not a hunch - the most likely cause is that we have a general feeling that our partner is cheating on us. The good news is that our partner is probably not having an affair, but that doesn't mean there aren't problems here. Dreams about cheating most often mean that our partner is too busy with work and other matters and that we feel upset because he spends not enough time with us. If this is the case, we will resolve the matter quickly. Deeper problems can arise when we have our own feelings of inferiority and low self-esteem. Whatever our problem - the subconscious mind will use dreams to sting us until the problem is finally solved.
7. Recurring dreams.
Recurring dreams can have a special meaning for us, especially if we don't know exactly how and why. Some topics that are often repeated in dreams are assault, nudity in public, running away from something and being late for an important meeting. These themes are believed to express our unresolved conflicts that we seek to overcome in our waking lives. Dreams ensure that our mechanism examines the problem at a subconscious level without our rationalizations and excuses that we use in everyday life. The problem can come from our past, present or even be a reflection of the problems we foresee in the future. Dreams may recur at regular intervals until the underlying conflict is resolved.
6. Interpretation of strange dreams.
Psychologists in Great Britain have recently found that dreams only gain in their "strangeness" during the night. Everyday events, such as meeting an acquaintance or driving to work, are often dreamed at the beginning of the night. Our health can also negatively affect our dreams – various infections, premenstrual syndrome and lack of sleep all have the potential to trigger nightmares. In our dreams we find both the ordinary and the most bizarre particles, and the result is usually extremely strange dreams that rarely make any sense. Dream books that offer possible interpretations of symbolic dream scenes are one way to interpret dreams. A military plane, for example, means that we are an angry, aggressive person who is ready to fight with everyone around us. The alligator in the swamp is supposed to refer to the fact that there might be something wrong with the health of our colon and it would be good to go for an examination.
READ MORE: The meaning of the most common dreams... do you know what they really mean?
5. More than twelve different dreams in one night.
We may not remember any of them, but it is quite possible that we had more than twelve dreams that night. More strange and interesting dreams unfold during REM sleep, but dreams also occur in other parts of the sleep cycle. If we lack sleep, we tend to dream more than if we are well-slept. It seems that our body is trying to catch up with more intense sleep that involves increased brain activity. Sleep researchers call this process REM Rebound and this is the way our body compensates for the lack of sleep and dreams. Such dreams are usually the most vivid and memorable, and they help the body to return to balance more quickly.
4. Lucid dreams.
Lucid dreams are not exactly like the ones shown in the movie Inception (Izvor, 2010), but this type of dream gives us a strange feeling of awareness that we are dreaming. During a lucid dream, we are not awake, as people often believe. In fact, our conscious mind is still aware enough to recognize dreams for what they are. The most interesting part of these dreams is certainly that we are able to shape the content of the dream to make it even more exciting or erotic, and sometimes we can even choose the ending ourselves. Some people believe that we can learn techniques to help us form our dreams at regular intervals and that mastering these techniques also involves reaching a higher level of consciousness.
3. Daydreaming.
Many of us daydream when we are bored, but there is a rather rare phenomenon called daytime parahypnagogia. Unlike daydreaming, which we direct ourselves, DPH is about the intrusion of dream images into our consciousness. This usually happens when we are overtired, bored, or relaxing. These dreams are sometimes confused with lucid dreams, but it is important to know that during lucid dreams we are asleep, but here we are awake. Among other things, we can also experience such dreams upon waking up in the morning, which is especially confusing. These morning dreams are rare, and are often called "sleepy hallucinations" because they often produce strange and hazy images that are near our bed or crawling on the walls.
2. Dreams that inspire.
There is a long history of dreams inspiring people to come up with new ideas and inventions. Mary Shelly, the author of the first science fiction novel Frankenstein, got the inspiration for her terrifying novel in a dream, in the sea, where a corpse came to life. Paul McCartney woke up from a dream with the entire melody of Yesterday in his head. But it's not just artists who find inspiration in their dreams. Biologist James Watson determined the shape of the double-helix DNA molecule with the help of a dream - a spiral staircase appeared to him in a dream.
1. A dream as a premonition.
Many of us know the stories of the person (or persons) who dreamed of a plane crash, decided not to fly, and then learned that the plane had indeed crashed. Dreams that give us information about future events are not common. These precognitive dreams do not have much support in the scientific world, but people continue to report them. A psychologist called Doctor Hearne is a leading dream researcher and hypnotherapist who has done a lot of research on lucid and precognitive dreams. Most such dreams are negative, the most common examples being the death of a family member or friend. It's not clear to researchers like Hearne why these dreams tend to herald only bad news, but the idea is that an intended tragedy is more compelling than good news, and we're more likely to pay more attention to it.
