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Asked by anon-252398 on 29 Apr 2020. This question was also asked by anon-252718.
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Wei Xun answered on 29 Apr 2020: last edited 29 Apr 2020 4:39 pm
Hi this isn’t my specialty, and it is certainly an enigmatic question with many possible answers as scientists don’t really know for sure yet.
One of the more popular theories is that our dreams help our brains consolidate sensory information we have received throughout the day, then try to make sense of them as well as sorting them for storage.
We also often remember our dreams more clearly when we are worried about something. Like if I am about to taking an important exam, I might have a nightmare that I revised for geography but the exam paper is for history, nooooooo! Here some scientists think dreaming gives us the opportunity to work out the best way to solve complex problems, like to have a practice run in our own heads.
Take a look here for more info: https://theconversation.com/why-do-we-dream-135609
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Ailith Ewing answered on 4 May 2020:
I don’t know the answer to this but, as Wei says, it’s thought that dreaming is our brain’s way of processing and remembering what we experience during the day.
However, I do find it really interesting that different people dream about very different things! For example, I tend to dream about boring things that I have to do the next day that are playing on my mind. Like sending emails or filling in forms. Whereas one of my colleagues dreams about goblins and witches and scary fantasy characters. My sister used to have a recurring dream that she was being chased by step ladders!
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Roberta Migale answered on 4 May 2020:
This is one of the unsolved questions in Biology but there are some theories which may explain why we dream. My favorite explanation (and also the most popular!) is that dreams may help us process emotions by encoding and constructing memories of them. What we dream may not be real but the emotions attached to them definitely are! In a way, by dreaming about something that for example worries us, we create a memory and thus take the emotions out of a situation that may be worrying us. It’s a way of visualizing something that is only in our unconscious, and this is very useful for our well being because if we do not process emotions these turn into worries and anxiety. So, I guess dreaming is a “survival” mechanism that we have developed to deal with things that stress us. But also, when we dream about something nice, we do tend to have a nicer sleep and this is again something that ultimately serves the purpose of making us feel good by sleeping better!
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Ana Cruz answered on 5 May 2020:
I am not an expert in this area but it is very interesting. It is incredible hard to test dreaming because you can measure brain activity of people that have woken up from a dream and tell you about it. If they are asleep you may not know they are dreaming! I agree with the other great answers in that the latest knowledge thinks that dreams are related to emotions. It is also believed that they are more often negative than positive and related to life-experiences so people can dream more after trauma for example. I would love to understand it better myself!
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Petra Fischer answered on 7 May 2020:
Sleep research is not my area of research, but I am also intrigued by the question. As the others also wrote, we don’t really know the precise answer. But it seems that while we dream, previous experiences (or thoughts) are replayed, sometimes from the same day, sometimes dating back years ago. But usually it is not exactly the same thought, it is more a ‘fantasy-like’ version, mixed-up with other contents, as if random experiences get embedded with each other. One phenomenon that can happen is that suddenly new creative ideas can come to our minds just as we are falling asleep. I have experienced it myself several times: Just as I was about to fall asleep I had an idea about a project that I was thinking of that week. I knew I would forget the details overnight, so I got up and wrote it down to remind myself of it the next day.
Why does the brain need to go into a more ‘loose mode’ of activating random thoughts and experiences, why would it be useful? New memories are stored by strengthening connections between nerve cells, creating connections that are stronger than others. Throughout the day we build many, many new connections, however, not all of them are relevant to our future decisions or interactions. There is a popular theory about sleep and memory that says that connections are weakened during sleep and only those that are relevant survive. For example the connections storing what you had for dinner nine days ago will be erased as they are not essential for your future, while more important life events can easily be stored forever.
Here is a short video that describes it in more detail:
But why are we conscious of our dreams? Does it have any advantages or is it just a by-product? I don’t know – but a while ago I have gone through a period of not remembering any of my dreams for months. I was simply not aware of them, and I don’t think it was a disadvantage – I probably just slept very tightly during that phase.
One interesting phenomenon also is lucid dreaming. I have a friend who trained himself to have ‘lucid dreams’, which means that he is fully aware that he is dreaming and can control his dreams. For example he could choose to fly like an eagle, which sounds like a lot of fun. I would like to be able to do have such increased awareness and control of while I dream, but have never managed to do it myself.
Another cool area of research, which is a little bit related to my own work, is to record brain activity during sleep, which is rhythmic, like a pendulum, and then strengthen or weaken these rhythms by playing brief auditory sounds or electrically stimulating the brain at selected points of the rhythm. The findings indeed suggest that boosting these rhythms can improve our ability how well memories are stored!
Comments
Luke commented on :
Hello! I, like Wei, am not a specialist in this area. But what I do know is that dreaming and sleep are both still areas of intense research and are really quite mysterious! We know it must be important – why else would our bodies dedicate so much time to it? Some scientists have evidence that suggests dreaming is important for processing memories. When an animal learns or experiences something new, a network of nerve cells in the brain are activated and this pattern corresponds to a ‘memory’. At night, when an animal is asleep, this same network of cells ‘replay’ their activity, and it is believed this is important for the long-term storage of memories. Why do we sometimes ‘remember’ our dreams the next day? What do they mean? I don’t have an answer to that! Maybe there is a psychologist reading this who can tell you more.
Nina commented on :
Excellent question – this remains highly controversial and there are multiple theories that try to explain the function of dreaming. One line of thinking is that dreams are simply a by-product of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and serve no real purpose at all. However, more recent evidence has pointed towards some key functions of dreams:
(1) To nurture our emotional and mental health. During REM sleep dreaming, key emotion and memory-related regions of the brain are reactivated, whilst a key stress chemical (noradrenaline) is shut down within our brain. This allows us to almost ‘re-live’ and therefore learn from important life events without being crippled by the emotional baggage that came with them the first time. In this way, REM sleep dreaming acts as a kind of therapy to ‘heal’ emotional wounds. This disconnection of useful information from extreme emotion fails in post-dramatic stress disorder (PTSD) where the levels of noradrenaline apparently remain abnormally high.
(2) Decoding our waking experiences – particularly to help us interpret the facial expressions of others and ‘read’ our social world – this function becomes really active as we transition into adolescence (and have to start making decisions for ourselves about how other people are feeling)
(3) To enhance our problem solving capabilities and creativity through intelligent information processing. Mendeleev’s formulation of the periodic table of elements, Mary Shelley’s vision for ‘Frankenstein’, and some of the greatest hits of The Beatles were all apparently dream-inspired! Lucid dreamers try to harness this power by controlling their dreams – but only about 20% of people can lucid dream, and the jury is out on whether this is beneficial or detrimental in the long-term.
You can find out more about the science behind sleep and dreaming in the book ‘Why We Sleep’ by Matthew Walker