Life Lessons From Memaw
There are different types of dreams. My dream is to win the lottery or write a book. Sometimes, I'm driving home and the next thing I know I am parking in my garage. Wait! I don't remember that last few miles of driving. How did that happen? (Daydreaming). And then there are dreams while we are sleeping...The Theater Of The Night.
Almost all of us dream at night. I talked a little about this when I talked about sleep. Unless you have physical damage to the brain, you do dream for about 2 hours every night. We have around 4-5 dreams during the night if we sleep around 8 hours. Do you remember all your dreams every night? Probably not. I sure don't. So, let's talk about what are dreams, why do we dream, some myths about dreams, why can't we remember them, and do we NEED to remember our dreams?
The one thing I won't discuss in this blog is what do our dreams mean. Sorry! I know that dream interpretation is very important and induces the most questions, but I'm not going to tackle it now. Maybe next dream blog...??
First, some background. We usually dream during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. If you remember from our sleep blog, you go through stages of sleep. After each cycle of stages, you start again--hence, having about 4-5 cycles of sleep per night. Each cycle has REM as a stage and the REM stage of each cycle gets longer and longer as the night goes on. You have your "Grand Finale" REM right before you wake up in the morning. This finale dream is about 50 minutes long.
During REM stage, you are dreaming. Your brain waves resemble the same brain waves as if you were awake. You are sleeping and you are dreaming but your brain thinks you are awake. This is why some dreams seem so real--like they really happened. Your brain thinks they did! Your body is paralyzed during dreaming so you don't act out your dream. This is why sometimes you dream you are trying to "run" but your legs feel like they can't move:) Finally, if you dream a face, it is a face you have seen before. We cannot make up faces in our dreams.
Dreams happen during the day and during the night but they are totally different. Winning the lottery or other life dreams usually happen during the day--at our conscious level. We dream about buying that house, losing 10 pounds, or getting a better job. Driving without remembering the last few miles to our house? That happens at our subconscious level. We are thinking or daydreaming and "auto" drive to our house. This can be dangerous because we are not focused on our driving--we are daydreaming about something else. However, daydreaming (in a safe environment) is actually good for us because it brings out our creative side.
Dreams at night are from our unconscious level, according to Sigmund Freud. He believed that things we do not "realize" at the conscious level comes out in our dreams. Scientists believe we dream for many reasons besides Freud's theory (although we will talk more about him later).
Researchers believe we dream because during our waking day, we process tens of millions of pieces of information constantly. Think of all the people you see during the day. You process what they look like, what they are wearing, what they are doing--hundreds and hundreds of people every day. However, you don't remember them unless there is a reason--you know who they are, they have rainbow striped hair, or they are wearing their underwear on their head! Other than that, your brain just "processes" their image and at night, your brain says "I don't need to remember them" and dumps that memory. So, you dreams may be very bizarre because your brain is filtering and dumping useless information.
Scientists also believe that dreaming and sleeping helps you consolidate memories. Again, what do I need to remember? Your brain sorts through all of that and makes those decisions for you. It does "let you know" what memories it is keeping by putting them in your dreams. Your brain thinks if you want to keep that memory, then you would do what is needed to remember that dream.
According to Freud, we dream to "rehearse". It is our time for our unconscious to "try out" real life experiences. It is also the time for processing all the emotions we have throughout the day. Think about all your feelings you had today. Your brain needs time to process them and when you are sleeping is the best time. These emotions are intertwining with your dreams.
There are a lot of myths about sleep and dreams:
If I dream that I died, then I will die in real life. Well, yes, you will die someday in your waking life. However, no, dreams do not tell you when you will die. If you die in your dream, it does mean something, according to Freud, but not your immediate death. We will discuss what it means in the next blog.
Many years take place in a single dream. Actually, scientists are discovering that dreams happen in real time. If you dream a scenario in 10 minutes, then 10 minutes have passed in that dream.
Eating certain foods will cause bad nightmares. False. Nightmares are dreams that frighten us in some way--maybe they are scary (like being chased) or scare us emotionally (my boyfriend died in my dream). Either way, it is all about the brain, not what is in our stomach.
Lucid dreaming is dangerous. Lucid dreaming is when you become aware in your dream that you are dreaming. It is becoming "conscious" in your "unconscious" state. As it sounds, it is very difficult to do, but not impossible. You are dreaming about riding a horse and then you become aware that is just a dream. In this state, you can "control" your dream. It is not dangerous at all but I do caution you not to do this too often. We will talk about why in the next dream blog.
Everyone dreams in color. This is not true. Some people only dream in color. Some people only dream in black and white. Most of us dream in both--it is according to the dream. How do you know? Concentrate on one object you remember from your dream (I remember there was a ball in my dream). Do you remember the color? If so, then you dreamed in color. If not, then it may have been in black and white.
Why can't I remember my dreams? I know some who can remember their dreams every night and I know some people who have never remembered even one dream. Why is that?
Because our dreams and their content are in our immediate memory, any little thing will disrupt that procedure of putting it into short term memory and forgetfulness happens. For example, someone says your name or the alarm goes off during your dream. You wake up and that dream is gone. Most of us wake up either at the end of a cycle (when the dream is gone) or abruptly during a dream (and that memory of that dream is gone). You have to make a big effort to remember your dreams, but it is not impossible. I'll give you pointers at the end on how to remember some of your dreams.
But do we need to remember our dreams? No and yes. Basically, those dreams early in the night are mostly that processing move and their content is bizarre and have no theme to them. However, according to Freud, those last few dreams in the night, they are the longest, and have some content to them that we need to pay attention to them. Freud believed that our unconscious controls our behavior but we do not have any access to that unconscious except for two specific ways--psychoanalysis (therapy) and dream analysis. Freud wrote a book called "The Interpretation of Dreams", but it is a very difficult to read and understand. Freud was totally addicted to cocaine when he wrote it, so that may explain a lot:)
How do we remember our dreams? Some people are good about remembering them and some people never remember their dreams. What can we do to remember them?
Here are some tips. They may work the first try. It may take several months before you remember just a tidbit of a dream.
First, you MUST have something to write with and something to write on. It must be paper and either pen or pencil. These items need to be within arms reach--on a table, next to your head in your bed, wherever. This is important because you need to write down IMMEDIATELY what you remember when you wake up. If you start searching for the paper/pen, or your feet hit the cold floor, or the bright light from your phone distracts you, then the dream will be gone.
Second, as soon as you wake, write down everything you remember. No complete sentences--words, objects, even if it doesn't make sense. I also suggest drawing! Why? Because most of our dreams comes from the right side of our brain--the side of our brain that is abstract and creative. You have just a few seconds to get all you can down from your dream. Drawing may help when you are trying to search for a word. Just let your fingers guide you.
Third, you can get yourself to wake up during a dream. Your first dream happens about 90 minutes after you fall asleep. Set your alarm. This is not an exact science but it does increase your chances of waking up in a dream. If you normally wake up to an alarm but it is not during a dream, set your alarm for about 15 minutes earlier. It may go off during a dream so you have a few precious seconds to write it down (or draw).
Finally, when you are writing down your dream, do NOT analyze or interpret your dream. Phase One is just to start remembering some of your dreams. Later in the day, as you are going over your dream journal, then you can interpret if possible. Sometimes words in your dream journal will spark some memory of that dream; sometimes your words and drawings look like they are from the planet Mars! No worries--it is fine.
Also, have a lot of patience. You will dream the rest of your life, so you have a lot of time to remember some dreams. Don't get discouraged. Just try and try again. It will happen eventually. Every night, tell yourself "I will remember my dream tonight" and mean it. Seriously, saying this will help tremendously!
Next time, we will talk about how to interpret those dreams. I'll give you some time to starting writing them down. Until then, enjoy your Theater of the Night!
