Is it possible to dream about the future?

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Dreaming about the future is an experience that you may have had, since it is a relatively widespread phenomenon. Why does it occur?

The world that opens before us when we sleep is vast, giving rise to a great culture around dreams: talking to the deceased, visiting other places or even dreaming about the future. Some people talk about the latter, ensuring that the content of their dreams came true later..

Memories and knowledge are intertwined within dreams. Although predicting the future is more related to the imagination -cerebral speaking-, there is no doubt that to create non-existent content, inside or outside of dreams, We are based on life experience.

Does this mean that the premonitory dreams are going to come true or are they probable? As is often the case, between myths and reality there is always a bridge, in the form of scientific studies that explain phenomena that were formerly attributed to magic.

What happens in the brain during a dream?

Deep sleep oscillates between two phases, REM and nREM. There are certain relevant differences between them:

REM phase or Random Eye Movement: Paradoxically, the activity during this stage is very similar to that of waking, except that the brain stem blocks muscle movement so that the dreamed actions are not reproduced. It is characterized by fast brain waves.Non-REM or nREM phase: in this phase you sleep more deeply, with low cerebral frequencies -less than 4 Hz-. During this state. The brain reacts minimally to external sounds and is less likely to wake up.

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In the REM phase, the strangest, longest and most memorable dreams are experienced. However, for either phase, dreaming is more likely when brain waves are weak. When these are stronger, the subject’s sensation is not so much that of having dreamed as of feeling unconscious throughout the night.

The posterior parietal area and prefrontal cortex are responsible for the dream experience.

Dream and memory: dreaming about the future

A study published this year revealed some interesting data about the relationship between sleep and memory. The most relevant is that nREM sleep is involved in the consolidation of episodic memory, while REM sleep preferentially settles and regulates emotional information and favors creativity and perception.

In addition, the time of night when you dream is also relevant. This study found that Early morning dreams are more clearly related to everyday life, while in the nocturnal ones it took on more relevance from an emotional point of view.

Taking this into account, it is expected that the content of dreams operates with vital information of the subject.

During wakefulness, memories are processed as part of the action of preventing possible risks and threats. This combination of memory and imagination serves a basic adaptive function: predicting the future. Since it is an implicit mechanism in thinking, is it possible that dreaming about the future is also possible? In the following lines you have the answer.

The evolutionary value of predicting the future

In evolutionary terms, any animal that can move should be able to predict where food, predators, and mates can be found. To make these estimates, therefore, you must base it on your own experience or on experiences that have been communicated to you in some way: having passed through that same area and there being food, predators or competition with other species.

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This prediction, whether for pure survival or for everyday events in an urban life, is made from a code that combines mental images, reasoning and emotions. Well then, During sleep, where the brain can be as active as when awake, this prediction process also occurs.

So is it possible to dream about the future?

Not in the mystical sense of the expression. If you think of dreaming about the future as a mental trip that gives an infallible answer to what is going to happen to us, that is not how it works. It is an inference that is as likely to be correct as when we are awake.

The study that reviewed this question found that, through insight patterns inherent to life experiences and knowledge, REM dreams can represent the associations between memory and imagination, creating new mental content. Therefore, through this process one could dream about a future scene speculatively.

That is to say, it is not precognition, but rather an unconscious inference that has a certain probability of coming true. Therefore, when what you have dreamed of comes true in real life, the feeling of “I dreamed this” appears.

As you see, dreaming about the future and then having it come true is perfectly possible. In fact, patients who lost the ability to dream after bilateral lesions of the ventromedial region or the parieto-temporo-occipital junction were also not able to imagine possible future scenarios, which proves that both processes are linked at a cognitive level.