Why do we dream?

Below, we address one of the most interesting and disturbing questions. Let’s see what the experts and the scientific community have said about it.

Dreams constitute an irreplaceable part of the richness of being human. We can remember it or not, they can be pleasant or terrifying, but the truth is that we all dream, without exceptions.

It is because of that Dreams are a constant in historical texts, as part of mythology and religion.. But are dreams an unimportant part of our existence or do they really transcend the anecdotal?

“We are the same material that dreams are woven from, our little life is surrounded by dreams.”

-William Shakespeare-

How much do we dream?

We spend a third of our lives sleeping. However, we only dream in phases of a few minutes. If we calculate an average, according to research, it is estimated that, Throughout our lives, we dream for about 6 whole years.

During this process, the brain is activated, requiring blood flow to be double that required during the waking state. Only part of the brain stops working while we sleep: the logical center.

It is for this reason that dreams often acquire shades of unreality.. In addition, the brain sends signals to the spinal cord so that the musculoskeletal system does not activate and we stay still.

The only thing we always move while we dream are our eyes. It is something that happens during the phase known as REM (Rapid Eyes Movementrapid eye movements).

“Isn’t the dream the testimony of the lost being, of a being that is lost, of a being that flees from our being, even if we can repeat it, find it again in its strange transformation?”

-Gastón Bachelard-

What is the function of dreams?

An important function of the brain during sleep is to discard and select memories. Therefore, before an exam it is preferable not to spend the night studying, but rather to rest our mind and consolidate our memory. And that is only achieved if we sleep for the necessary time.

When we dream, our brain tries to solve the problems that occupy us during the day. Therefore, sleep can be the solution to a problem that we cannot solve.

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In addition, A dream can be a faithful reflection or, in most cases, symbolic of what occupies our mind., our fears and our desires. Hence, nightmares that evoke fears are common, such as lack of self-confidence, which can be reflected, for example, in a dream in which the person is naked in a public place.

But Sometimes, it is sleep that helps eliminate those fears. This is, at least what some theories indicate. When dreaming about what scares us in a different context, what happens is that that fear is reduced. It doesn’t always happen, it’s true, but it can serve as an escape route.

An investigation into dreams and emotions

Theories that defend sleep as a process to reduce fear can be based on a study coordinated by neurologist Matthew Walker, from the University of Berkeley. In this research, a group of 34 healthy young people was separated into two groups. They then had them view a total of 150 images at 12-hour intervals, while the researchers observed their brain activity with a scanner.

The images presented ranged from dull objects to disturbing portraits of accidents. In this case, the first group viewed the photographs once in the morning and again at night, without having slept in the interval. For its part, the second group saw them once before going to bed and once in the morning when they got up.

The results show that participants who had slept between viewings had a significantly milder emotional reaction to the first viewing. In this case, the results of the brain scans during the REM phase showed how brain activity in the amygdala (brain structure in charge of emotions), and the prefrontal cortex (rational structure of the brain) processed the impact of the images, minimizing it. .

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In this way, it is concluded that REM sleep can help us overcome difficult emotional situations in our lives. Among them, reducing the fear of those situations that we perceive as threatening. Although, as sleep expert David Kuhlmann rightly says, sleep is not the cure for all emotional problems.

“The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its volume on water.”

-Sigmund Freud-

What Freud said

Sigmund Freud is, without a doubt, one of the most relevant figures who has studied everything related to the world of dreams. Freud believed that the function of dreams was to satisfy our desires.. However, this is only one of the many answers to the question: why do we dream? What function do dreams serve?

The truth is that the world of dreams remains a mystery. Not even the hundreds of pages of The interpretation of dreams of Freud, nor the multiple studies that have been done about them, have been able to reliably answer all the questions related to the subject.

But one thing we do know: no we lose a third of our lives sleeping. Sleeping is not a waste of time, it is necessary for people’s proper daily functioning.

Activation-synthesis theory

In 1989, Hobson proposed the activation-synthesis theory. This theory is based on the fact that, during REM sleep, numerous brainstem circuits have been observed to activate and bombard the cerebral cortex with neural signals.

The core of this theory is that The information supplied to the cortex during REM sleep is largely random. And that the dream would represent the cortex’s attempt to make sense of these random signals.

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This theory does not deny that dreams can have meaning. However, it differs from Freud’s theory in its interpretation. Without a doubt, why we dream is still something that science and the study of the brain are passionate about. Despite all scientific advances, new data always emerges, yielding new theories. Will we ever know exactly why we have dreams at night?