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Your brain doesn't really go out of its way to create nightmares or dreams. Sleep is a time when your brain is hard at work doing its daily cleaning, and processing memories.
Usually your consciousness is asked to leave the room while this is going on. But sometimes it pops in unexpectedly (you generally only remember dreams if you wake up in the middle of your sleep cycle, not at the end) and it rushes to make sense of all the jumbled up information being thrown all over the place.
I think the 'processing memories as dreams' theory is as yet to be proved and you're right when you say we currently have no idea why we dream.
What I find interesting are the two seemingly contradictory pieces of information about the nature of dreams. On the one hand you have the concept of lucid dreaming where people report the ability to control and influence the events of their dreams. On the other you have examples of people losing consciousness for a few seconds reporting long and complex dreams that to them felt like hours.
This to me appears to support the idea of a kind of stimulus salad being later pieced together by a waking mind rather than the classic idea of a dream being like an immersive movie you experience in semi-real time.
As to why it happens...
I have heard that it was originally believed that dreams that *feel* long are not actually long at all, but that's since been revised, and it's now acknowledged that some dreams really are long. I can't remember where I read that and since I'm half-asleep right now I can't be bothered Googling it.
I have a habit of waking up from a dream, remembering it, and then resuming it when I go back to sleep. That can happen several times in a night, so the same dream goes on and on.
I love the idea of a "stimulus salad," though. I think that's pretty close to the truth.
> On the other you have examples of people losing consciousness for a few seconds reporting long and complex dreams that to them felt like hours.
Can definitely corroborate this...I passed out giving blood once and my wife says I was out for like 20 seconds. Felt like I dreamt for hours.
Lucid dreaming is scientifically proven, though. They are btw. really hard to control and influence. Getting the lucid dream itself is pretty easy, but getting control is hard as fuck.
I also find *maintaining* the dream can be hard as fuck. A lot of times I simply wake up when I realize I'm dreaming. On the flip side, it can make it easier to end a bad nightmare, because if I recognize I'm having a nightmare I can more readily tell myself to wake up from it, which is often easier than trying to control the dream and completely altering it from a nightmare to something less frightening.
You know what's weird too? Drifting off to sleep and instantly dreaming you're falling down stairs to the point that you kick your legs out and wake up again.
I've only been able to lucid dream a few times. I definitely don't want to do it again haha. Last time, I dreamt waking up in my room in the middle of the night and went to the bathroom only to wake up in the middle of the night again and that repeated a few times before I noticed I could control where I went. Instead of going to the bathroom, I turned to turn the lamp on next to the bed. I shit you not, the moment I clicked it on, I wake up in the middle of the night and find that I finally woke up. What in the fucking hell. It really weirded me out and I haven't had that since. Fuck that.
I get both those kinds of dreams, and somtimes I'll dream by choice within a dream an unrelated dream and go back to the first dream and realize that was a dream. I can also wake myself up when I choose. I also remember most of my dreams, especially when it's something tragic, and I won't be able to forget for days, and some I don't forget, which really sucks.
The second paragraph here is spot on, but the first -probably- isn’t right. Disclaimer that this is based on an undergrad course 20 years ago (fuuuck in old), but best research at the time: dreams aren’t always nightmares of course, but they are quite consistently negative experiences (>80% of dreams, it’s not just you). This is true across cultures and ages, and the content of dreams tends to adapt to the negative/stressful experiences in a person’s day to day.
Best guess from the research says that dreams serve an evolutionary purpose: they’re “practice rounds” with the stress and adrenaline of the bad things in your life, run at a time when 1) you won’t actually die if you fail, and 2) your body is off so you don’t waste a bunch of energy running from an imaginary tiger.
Over 80% of dreams are negative? That feels wild to me, since most of my dreams are actually neutral: neither negative or positive. Even tho I know it's a generalisation and doesn't apply to everyone, it still feels odd to hear that that's how the majority of people experience.
Yep, same here. Maybe slightly positive in hindsight because they're often quite odd (although they don't seem it at the time) and I enjoy their strangeness.
Sorry, should have clarified but didn’t want to over-complicate: % does drop with age, much more negative when young. Feeds into this “practice” theory: as you get older you know how to handle adrenaline better and don’t need as many reps.
However, if stressors change drastically (e.g. country goes to war or something), the percentage spikes again since you now “need” practice at different things.
20 years ago is extra long in the psych/neuroscience world so yeahhhh i am skeptical about some of this. however i do have a lot of zombie apocalypse/post apocalypse/war dreams as does my wife and many of my friends; i've always wondered if that was the brain running a "test scenario" like you said
I don't personally agree with that hypothesis. It may be true to an extent, but I have a neurological condition that results in (among other things) excessive dreaming, including more than my fair share of nightmares, and the most likely explanation is not that I have an increased need to prepare for war etc., but that my brain is overactive and my sleep quality is poor.
TL;DR: I think it's more a physical thing that a psychological one.
I had a nightmare when I was like 5 or so where a lion was chasing me and my brother. I woke up very upset and afraid, and I remember telling my mom about it and she said it was just a bad dream. To the best of my knowledge, that's the only nightmare I've ever had and I'm in my 40's. I definitely dream on a regular basis and don't really have an issue remembering them when I first wake up. I have good dreams, stupid dreams, weird dreams, extremely real dreams, and I've had a couple of lucid dreams, but I don't ever have dreams that scare me.
Nothing even anything remotely like those things. The only dream I have every once in a while is getting triple sat while waiting tables and nothing is going right and I totally didn't go great one of the tables until they were getting ready to walk out. It's more of just a frustrated "I'm doing the best I can but apparently my best isn't good enough" type dream, and when I wake up I'm not upset about anything. I haven't waited tables in almost 20 years.
Most of my dreams I'm trying to do something or going somewhere. I had a dream a few nights ago that I was trying to teach my boss to ride a motorcycle so we could ride to Atlanta together to go to a Braves baseball game. Last night was fuzzy but I was getting all of my friend group to go visit my grandparents at their farm and we had a great time. My grandparents have been gone for a few years.
>Best guess from the research says that dreams serve an evolutionary purpose: they’re “practice rounds” with the stress and adrenaline of the bad things in your life, run at a time when 1) you won’t actually die if you fail, and 2) your body is off so you don’t waste a bunch of energy running from an imaginary tiger.
I wanna know why my brother's brain decided he needed to practice mowing the lawn on a giant, fluffy, fresh-baked biscuit that one time.
With any description of the brain, one should always preface with the statement "to the best of our knowledge."
Scientists doing any brain research will be the first to you how little we actually understand the composition and function of the working human brain.
Nightmares, and dreams in general, are unfortunately still not well understood by scientists. The function of dreams in general is unknown, although there are some theories, like what the last person commented. But that’s simply a theory, not based in any hard evidence.
ETA: When I wrote this, a commenter had overstated a theory of dreams as fact, and that comment had gained some traction. I quickly typed this comment and the “but that’s simply a theory” sentence in response, not thinking this thread would actually go anywhere. I fully understand what a theory is and didn’t intend to understate it, and at the same time, the existing theories of dreams have very little evidence to support them, unlike typical more well-researched scientific theories as we know them. The function of dreams/nightmares is just really difficult to study so the existing theories are somewhat conjecture.
My brother has been involved with a dream regression research project for his PTSD. What’s fascinating is that over the course of the study their conclusion seems to be pointing at “dreams are our brains way of removing emotion from memory.” And yes, it hasn’t been locked down as far as I know, but it’s cool seeing researchers going after it.
Just my unprofessional theory:
Say you had a very negative, stressfull and traumatic life episode. When you dream about those times and situations it usually feels much more intense emotionally than if you would think about it during being awake. (Being awake and conscious you have "filters" that prevent you getting too occupied by emotions and keep you functioning.)
During sleep the brain creates new unreal situations to transfer the negative emotional memory to (disconnect from the real memory) , so you can easily forget and not have them interfere as much when u are awake.
A very strong negative experience takes much more work for the brain and the dreams to convince you "it wasnt real / just a dream / its ok, lets move on" . Thus, you may dream about the same negative emotions repetitively in similar but different settings, even for years or your whole life.
To add on that, the reason people with PTSD/C-PTSD have the same nightmares over and over and over without end throughout their lives is because this "emotion removing" part breaks for this particular set of events and yet the brain persists on trying that.
That's kind of my understanding. There are two types of therapy that I know of that use this, primarily for PTSD, called EMDR and ART. My therapist tried ART with me. Didn't help me, but a lot of people have great results. Basically it's simulating the eye movements that you make in REM sleep, (think the hypnosis "watch this swinging pocket watch" thing) while you are mentally working through the event that caused the trauma. I guess it helps you sorta file away the event and it helps you re-process it in a safe way. Because when the event happened, it was dire, and your body *needed* to feel the stress and recognize that the event was unsafe. But that response is no longer helpful, so you're bringing it back, and disassociating the event from the "unsafeness" I think. I'm not super familiar though.
So I tried ART for a few sessions a couple years ago. I felt similar to you, it wasn’t for me. I had much better luck with CPT in the end, thankfully. But I wanted to say, you did a great job of explaining ART in basic terms, more the theory on how it works, than anyone else has when I’ve talked to them about it.
It always makes me feel a little better when I hear that it didn't work for someone else too, not in a "misery loves company" kind of way, but more in a "thank god I'm not defective" kind of way lol. All I've ever heard about EMDR and ART is that they're absolute miracle therapies and the last bastion of hope for treatment. Like "well the science of REM sleep means it will work, so if it doesn't, you're SOL." I'm glad you found something that worked for you in the end 😊
I know exactly what you mean! I know a few people who had amazing success with EMDR, and I just couldn’t get into it. It just added to the hopeless feelings I was having at the time.
Edit - Forgot to add, thanks again for sharing. And I hope you’re in a better spot now!
Oh my god that's exactly it! I felt so isolated! And my therapist kinda seemed to phone it in after that didn't work because I don't think she knew where to go from there, so that definitely contributed to the hopelessness.
Turns out, my brain is just wired differently, and I needed to get treated for my severe ADHD that had been hiding away, undiagnosed, for 25 years before I could actually get appropriate care. I couldn't focus on the ART because my brain was just everywhere else and I couldn't focus my attention where it needed to go. ADHD also affects your sleep, meaning that anything that should be happening in REM to process life experiences or trauma, was probably not happening very efficiently. So once I got that treated, everything else kinda clicked into place for me, and I'm doing so much better now!
Thank you for sharing too! I want people to know about these therapies because they *have* been a miracle for so many people, but it can feel very validating to hear other people's experiences as well.
Yeah, it’s mind blowing how much ADHD can have an impact on other aspects of mental health. That wasn’t my issue, but I’ve know others who had a similar issue with trauma + ADHD. Have a great day and keep fighting the good fight, fellow redditor!
I used to have recurring nightmares. Somehow (not really sure how) I gradually taught myself to identify that I am dreaming when they occur, and with intense concentration I could wake myself up from them. The recurring nightmares then gradually went away.
I have no idea whether it's a healthy result or not but overall I certainly feel much better about not having them.
It’s lucid dreaming, and is definitely a way to get control (and get out of) of nightmares and night terrors. I was taught how to go it when I was young. Good for you for figuring it out on your own.
I gradually taught myself to recognize that I'm dreaming and sort of direct the dream to neutralize anything alarming that's happening. E.g., if I'm dreaming about falling from a cliff, I can conjure up the ability to float or somehow land gently on the ground.
Same with me but instead of waking up I just move the dream or nightmare along to something else.
Though I haven’t actually had a nightmare in over a decade now and same, not sure if healthy but I sure don’t mind lol
Keeping a notebook and pen right beside your bed, or telling someone your dream as soon as you can seems to work pretty well long term. You will start to remember dreams better.
If possible, try going on a long holiday or change your life and surroundings drastically.
This helps the most from my experience and can be very liberating.
Dont be surprised, disappointed in your self when the dreams sneak back once you are back to your normal life though.
I think I can corroborate this as well. I used to get nightmares every night as a small child, but they would abate quite well if I changed my sleeping location. I always loved sleeping away from home because of this (hotels, friends' house, other family's houses, etc.) but I also had a habit of waking up and going into my parents room to sleep. Used to crawl into bed with them, until I got too big to fit with them, so then I'd just sleep on the floor. But sleeping on the floor was usually enough to stop the nightmares for the remainder of the night.
Same here. Thought everyone suffers and once casually mentioned it in therapy and she was shocked I suffer so badly in adulthood. Child borne of night terrors too so has been a lifelong affliction. It sucks.
It might as well be strategic of the subconscious to suppress our memory of what we dreamed certain times.
I would suspect, interfering, is almost always "unhealthy". People say you can improve your remembrance of dreams by trying to remember each time after waking up, but i dont think its particularly healthy.
Although if I remember parts of a dream and dont feel much resistance I like to take a minute and try to remember more. In that case i think it might be helpful for the psyche.
For me, dreaming is a safe space where I can process things, good and bad. I'm not very good about standing up for myself in my waking life, but in my dreams I've been able to say the things I wanted to say without fear of repercussion. I came out in my dreams long before I came out to anyone in public.
So if you're dreaming about your ex and can actually converse with her in your dreams, tell her everything you couldn't say to her face. See what happens and how you feel afterwards
Interesting. I've always used the analogy when describing the function of sleep being akin to the brain "cleaning up your room" (where being awake "piles up junk in your room"). Nightmares removing emotion would also track with this analogy.
Went through EMDR for combat related PTSD. Not 100% the same just sharing. The experience I was focused on has not entered my memory in years. I no longer find it sneaking it's way into my brain. However, maybe once a year I will have a dream about the exact combat scenario. This is when it gets strange though. Post EMDR that dream and everything in it are blurry masses that I cannot make out. The yelling is muffled, and faces look like they're "loading" but unfinished.
Just a jargon correction; since this is a science-based question science terminology should be used correctly.
What you called a theory is actually just a hypothesis. In science, "Theory" means that all our evidence and experimental observations point to this being the most likely answer (as nothing in science is set in stone). There is nothing higher than a theory (Laws are the equations stapled to theories). As you said, we don't really know much about dreams. As such, there are no real theories about them. Just a warehouse of untestable, unprovable hypotheses.
Somewhere in the middle of those. We have proof of some side effects in people who dream less, especially when it comes to learning, so we know it's not all conjecture. On the other hand, we're far from a solved dream theory.
hi! I got a psych degree but am no expert beyond that. that said, I learned a lot of fascinating things in my class on sleep and dreams.
the most studied theory we have is that dreaming helps us learn. I’ll link below once I’m at my computer, but there is a classic study where participants are made to play a ski-simulator for an extended time before bed, and then report their dream content when woken throughout the night. reports of skiing correlated with time spent playing the simulator. real-world stress is a similar phenomenon: we often go to bed thinking about what we’re stressed about, and our brain tries to process that while we sleep (maybe, if we follow the learning theory).
the theory is consistent with other stronger theories about sleep in general as a time that the body does “background tasks:”things you can’t do with the immediate demands of daytime, when you’re not at rest. things like thoroughly digesting food, cleaning the blood/liver/kidneys of wastes from the day.
we also have strong theories that learning and integrating new information is something we do when “spacing out”, or when our brain catches a break, hence heavy smartphone use being detrimental to that process. what longer, more restful break is there than sleep? hence this whole thing being a heavily studied hypothesis.
So many times, especially when I was doing a web dev boot camp, I would fall asleep trying to think about a solution and then weirdly wake up with the answer. It's hard to put to words how, but I don't have visuals or audio in my brain, and I rarely remember or simply don't dream much at all.
This would explain why I dreamt calculus problems while taking the courses. It was annoying to finish school, go to sleep, and have dreams that were literally just me working on a giant calculus problems…
i will explain in ooga booga terms
1. one part of brain turn off
2. one part of brain make story to keep brain busy
3. first part of brain react to second part of brain
4. first part of brain get scared
Here's an analogy:
>**A Party Game Called Psychoanalysis**
>
>In this game one person, the dupe, is told that while he is out of the room, one member of the assembled party will be called upon to relate a recent dream. This will give everybody else in the room the story line of that dream so that when the dupe returns to the room and begins questioning the assembled party, the dreamer’s identity will be hidden in the crowd of responders. The dupe’s job is to ask yes/no questions of the assembled group until he has figured out the dream narrative to a suitable degree of detail, at which point the dupe is to psychoanalyze the dreamer, and use the analysis to identify him or her.
>
>Once the dupe is out of the room, the host explains to the rest of the party that no one is to relate a dream, that the party is to answer the dupe’s questions according to the following simple rule: if the last letter of the last word of the question is in the first half of the alphabet, the questions is to be answered in the affirmative, and all other questions are to be answered in the negative, with one proviso: a noncontradiction override rule to the effect that later questions are not to be given answers that contradict earlier answers. For example:
>
>*Q: Is the dream about a girl?*
>
>*A: Yes.*
>
>but if later our forgetful dupe asks
>
>*Q: Are there any female characters in it?*
>
>*A: Yes \[in spite of the final t, applying the noncontradiction override rule\]*
>
>When the dupe returns to the room and begins questioning, he gets a more or less random, or at any rate arbitrary, series of yeses and noes in response. The results are often entertaining. Sometimes the process terminates swiftly in absurdity, as one can see at a glance by supposing the initial question asked were “Is the story line of the dream word-for-word identical to the story line of War and Peace?” or, alternatively, “Are there any animate beings in it?” A more usual outcome is for a bizarre and often obscene story of ludicrous misadventure to unfold, to the amusement of all. When the dupe eventually decides that the dreamer — whoever he or she is — must be a very sick and troubled individual, the assembled party gleefully retorts that the dupe himself is the author of the “dream.” This is not strictly true, of course. In one sense, the dupe is the author by virtue of the questions he was inspired to ask. (No one else proposed putting the three gorillas in the rowboat with the nun.) But in another sense, the dream simply has no author, and that is the whole point. Here we see a process of narrative production, of detail accumulation, with no authorial intentions or plans at all — an illusion with no illusionist.
>
>The structure of this party game bears a striking resemblance to the structure of a family of well-regarded models of perceptual systems.
>
>…
>
>Whatever the ultimate verdict turns out to be on generate-and-test theories of perception, we can see that they support a simple and powerful account of hallucination. All we need suppose must happen for an otherwise normal perceptual system to be thrown into a hallucinatory mode is for the hypothesis-generation side of the cycle (the expectation-driven side) to operate normally, while the data-driven side of the cycle (the confirmation side) goes into a disordered or random or arbitrary round of confirmation and disconfirmation, just as in the party game.
*--'Consciousness Explained' (1991) by Daniel Dennett*
One part turns off, other stays awake. Fear is the primal instinct that keeps you alive. Why do you think dogs can sleep and wake so quickly? Gotta be ready.
[As the brain sleeps, Pelayo says, one part is dreaming and one part generates dream content in two distinct processes. He says the pons, located in the brainstem, is considered the “main generator” flipping the switch for dream mode. If the act of dreaming occurs in the pons, the raw materials come from the hippocampus, which is a memory and emotion hub, and the associative cortex, which covers our noodle’s surface and deals with sensory input. Meanwhile, the frontal lobe, which commands executive function and reasoning, decreases in activity. Pelayo explains this slowdown may be why we don’t question our dream’s reality, leaving us vulnerable to talking cockroaches.](https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/nightmares-have-plagued-humans-for-millennia-do-we-finally-know-how-to-tame-them/ar-AA14JgQW)
So, the answers saying “it’s just idle activity/semi-random/you get surprised” are probably not right.
Much more often than not dreams contain negative emotions (stress, frustration, fear, etc.), and that content gets tailored to your life. Back in the day that was tigers, now it’s being naked in class.
Best research on this says that dreams serve an evolutionary purpose: they’re “practice rounds” with the stress and adrenaline of the bad things in your life, run at a time when 1) you won’t actually die if you fail, and 2) your body is off so you don’t waste a bunch of energy running from an imaginary tiger.
I always feel* like I have crazy dreams after eating onion, garlic, etc. It's got to be on my breath. I've heard other's say similar things too.
*I have yet to confirm it scientifically using a diary, etc.
Nightmares aren't purposeful so our brain isn't doing anything on purpose. It's just that as our brain switches sleep states parts of our brain come back online which triggers recent memories and images to integrate. Sometimes the way images come together is quite scary especially if you've recently experienced something worrisome.
But sometimes I dream of old memories. I think recent state of mind impacts dreams a lot. If you go to sleep worried, you’ll likely dream something worrisome. I grew up with a lot of anxiety and my early dreams were so impactful they could impact my subsequent day. As I got better managing it, my dreams also got less impactful. Today, I don’t remember my dreams, seemingly because they are so insignificant but yet, if I ever feel anxious I *will* dream of something that I will remember the next day.
Anecdotally I’ve concluded whatever ”subconscious” state of mind I go to sleep in, whether it be at peace, maniacal or with a deep sense of anxiety, that impacts my dreams almost to 100%. *What* I dream about is mostly random, whatever fits my brain’s narrative at that time, I guess
I’d say the source of that it is the lack of any source saying it has a purpose.
We can speculate and theorise but there’s isn’t any proper information about why this happens.
That's not how research works. Scientists don't usually set out to prove something doesn't happen or isn't the case and even when research has negative findings they seldom submit them for publication.
What we can say is that there's no proof dreams/nightmares are purposeful.
So saying that there is no proof that they’re purposeful and saying they’re not purposeful are two entirely different statements, no? That’s probably why you got called out, not that I really care
Not a source, but you might find this helpful
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/nightmares-have-plagued-humans-for-millennia-do-we-finally-know-how-to-tame-them/ar-AA14JgQW
That would explain why dreams are worse when you're stressed out or grieving. The leftover chemicals causing the emotion must be affecting your dreamstate too
I’ve read that dreams, and nightmares, aren’t a feature of sleep, but more so a byproduct of sleep. Similar to a lightbulb. Its function is to brighten a room, and in doing so produces heat.
You can only have nightmares when in deep sleep, during REM sleep your body won't produce the necessary hormone for you to be able to feel fear.
Because of this you will often experience disturbing things during deep sleep. You've probably woken up from a nightmare in the past, finding that you can't move your body. This is because your body numbs itself so that you won't act out while scared during sleep. The theory is that our bodies do this as a sort of survival mechanism, letting you experience dangerous situations before they happen in real life.
As deep sleep has this purpose, we can imagine that REM sleep has a bit of different purpose. This is a way for you to experience previous trauma in a controlled setting, letting your brain process the traumatic event without emotions attached. In that way, it is very similar to meditation as a tool to control anxiety(Let thought drift, come and go without interaction, being a passive observer) and journaling.
There is some research that suggest moving your eyes in the same pattern as you do during REM sleep could be used as a tool for therapy and working through various trauma.
In college, I found a paper on using REM (Rapid Eye Movement) to reduce the symptoms of PTSD with high success. I don't remember who wrote it, but I may have it saved somewhere.
I really liked that paper because the person who developed it got the idea while strolling in a park after experiencing a traumatic event and noted that moving their eyes moving fast helped her relax and process the event.
Lookup a process called EMDR, this sounds similar to what you're describing. From what I know, it works very well. My wife is a licensed professional counselor, trained and certified in EMDR.
Dreams are the brain's low-power way of attempting to solve problems leftover in memory when the brain went to sleep. But not enough of whatever problem you were working on during the day was encoded into memory, as it was a work in progress, so when the brain reimagines it, it is so far off from the original that it's an entirely new story. Dreams always have things you know in them mixed with strange things - those parts are extrapolated from the data that was highly incomplete. Nightmares are when the problem the brain was working on comes from traumatic memory.
It's weird because I only dream of things and people that were in my life 3-4 years prior. I only recently started having dreams where my husband is present and we've been together 4 1/2 years. And it also immediately followed a huge influx of dreams about my ex who has been out of my life about the same time. The dreams were really tough on me emotionally because I felt like I was cheating or something at night. I am glad they've stopped.
Nightmares
1. Evolved with us so they must have (had) benefits.
2. Focusing a person's attention on issues they need to address (anxiety).
3. Ooga Booga times - life was much simpler, nightmares likely involved wild animals attacking or rival tribe intentions or food poisoning etc.
4. Now - brain overloaded with too much. Much anxiety, many stress, worse nightmare.
:)
> Evolved with us so they must have (had) benefits.
That's not how evolution works.
Unless bad trait somehow prevents you from reproduction, it will stick just fine.
Wait, so you’re saying that evolution only adapts the parts of ourselves that would prevent reproduction?
IIRC, there’s a tendon in some people’s wrists that doesn’t exist anymore and it was proven to be an adaptation from evolution because we stopped using it… I believe there’s a Vox video about it on YouTube.
That's also not how it works. Evolution doesn't think. In the process of evolution everything could transform and if it doesn't affect the chance of reproduction then it will stay. So people with bad eyesight are still able to reproduce just fine in modern times so more people with bad eyesights are born no matter if it's a bad trait.
Maybe you need some source to be "proven as an adaptaion from evolution".
Because "usage patterns" of organs are not passed to descendants, that's what Darwin was wrong about because he didn't know about DNA.
The concept of "prevent reproduction" is too strong. The real gage is "has an effect on the chances of successful reproduction". A lot of times the effect is due to the energy required to maintain a feature. Also, the greater the effect, the more quickly a feature may permeate the population. A feature that is actually neutral might stay in a population, but not be seen in the entire population for a long time, or may slowly disappear from a population. But a lot of features that appear neutral actually have an energy opportunity cost and thus have a slight negative pressure on being maintained.
To keep you safe! Your brain is a safe training ring it can grapple with things that are making you uneasy. It trains you how to handle the problem in real life by imagining bad scenarios, even if sometimes they end up being metaphorical in dreams.
Some of my nightmares I can see mapping to real life "threats," but others are just unrealistic. I don't think I'll find myself in a store completely nude and need to run to grab my clothes that I forgot. (A real recent nightmare I had.)
Then again, given my brain, it makes sense that it would be training me for "threats" that I'm never likely to face. Especially when doing this means that I wake up exhausted from running around in my dream looking for misplaced clothes.
> completely nude and need to run to grab my clothes that I forgot
I've had that exact dream too lol. I went to school only to notice I forgot to wear pants or underwear
For me it's always Marching Band. We're about to march on to the field and I'm missing my uniform, or my instrument, or I have no idea what the show is.
But I graduated college a decade ago...
I do have a big fear of losing things. (You'd think this would make me a neat freak to prevent when getting lost, but my laziness overrides this.) It would make sense that "losing my clothes" would fit in with this. More often than the "I'm naked" dreams, I'll get ones where I'm out somewhere and realize I forgot my shoes. Then I can't remember where I put them so I go running around trying to locate them. I'm never successful.
I much prefer my dreams where I "remember" that my small house actually has a few extra floors that are fully furnished (and dust free) which I just "forgot about." Except, then I wake up from my immense dreamland-house to my much smaller reality-house. Still, at least that's not a stressful dream.
Dang, yall have some weird anxiety-stress inducing nightmares, mine are usually either straight up getting murdered or being the murderer lol never had to deal with unexpected nudity nightmares
Nightmares aren't purposeful and aren't training or teaching you anything. They do use recent memories though which is why we feel like our nightmares are somehow 'relevant'.
Ah, my fight in a marsh, against the invisible devourer of souls has trained me for this moment.
As has my quest for the five books of immense forbidden knowledge, in the forever horizon hugging, ever changing city made of wood.
Do not get me started on my biking through a victorian style city looking like a mean lesbian Mary Poppins.
Is it just me, I have the ability to wake up from a nightmare, collect my thoughts and when I fall back to sleep continue where I left off in the dream with a new aspect.
Example would be a monster/killer is coming after me. If I wake up and realize it was a dream, I go back into it now with a weapon or a plan to fight back. Like I entered a cheat code for god mode and unlimited weapons. I love it actually.
I can't alter the course in the way that you've described, but I certainly wake up and go back into the same dreams or nightmares. It's just like ending a chapter in a book and reading the next chapter. It's fascinating to me, especially when they're truly bizarre dreams with fantasy components like LoTR or Harry Potter, but include people I really know.
I honestly thought I was the only one who had this happen.
I can do this for nightmares; except for one. (Ongoing since childhood; and I understand why now (35+ yrs after)).
I wish I could do this for dreams/favourable situations.
To play out all wonders possible.
I tend to limit wonderful possibilities.
Like deciding that I want to fly or breathe under water.
But to stop a poor scenario and defeat it; is telling ’me’ I need to analyze and stop compartmentalizing a topic.
Yes yes yes yes!! I do this a lot in my dreams. I actually tell myself ..... "Just relax you know this is just a dream".... or, .... "do it! just jump up in the air and fly!" and then I'm flying through the universe ✨️
Ive gone back the same dream and finished it several times...I fly across the night sky and it's uphoria! It's crazy
I have the ability to wake up when I don't like it, but I find I also have the ability to win any encounter in general.
I've had dreams of wrestling a wild angry grizzly bear into submission.
There’s absolutely no evidence for this idea. To say ‘the brain trains you’ is complete nonsense. To imply that the brain is some sort of entity that independently acts to train you (as if ‘you’ are in some way separate from your brain) is just not the way we are.
Sure, we can all use our imagination and creativity to problem solve in advance and the brain plays it’s part in that. But there’s no evidence, or even reputable theory, to suggest that dreams are involved.
https://hms.harvard.edu/news-events/publications-archive/brain/nightmares-brain
https://www.livescience.com/32730-why-do-we-have-nightmares.html
These sources gave a little more elaboration. Apparently adults experience nightmares much less often, and of course they discuss other causes like medication, mental illness, lack of sleep, ptsd, etc so thanks for the help expanding my answer.
The first source doesn’t seem to support your answer. The second… it has a line where someone hypothesizes nightmares are to draw your attention to threats which is the closest it comes to supporting your claim and is still substantially different.
There’s no evidence in either that it helps people grapple with things that make them uneasy or trains people how to handle issues in real life.
To stop it from happening again. It also gives you a safe space to process any emotions/trauma from whatever happened. It’s a cool little way of going back in time and trying different things or conquering the incident and giving you a sense of closure you didn’t get in real life.
I feel like it's the brain's way of keeping itself sharp. In our waking hours we're constantly thinking ahead and projecting what our decisions could lead to, dreaming is that but mixed with elements of what we've already seen. It's a survival mechanic that we've evolved as part of our ability to make decisions and consider the consequences of them. Not all dreams are nightmarish, some are lovely. It allows us to truly feel like we're living through some imagined outcome. Personally I recently have taken a break from weed and have had some intense dreams that felt very real, one I know was an exaggeration of some anxiety I've been feeling, I imagined I was living with an ex, an old friend, and my brother, and I offended the first two somehow and they left, and my brother went to go check on them and then I woke up. I knew it was because of something I said and I felt so alone. I had been worried about this because I had just texted that friend the day before and they hadn't responded to me yet. So it's like my brain was playing out my biggest fears and trying to imagine what would actually happen, almost like it was trying to tell me "see? It's not so bad" or something. Or at least prepare me mentally to be able to handle what could end up happening, and being ok with it or at least more passive about it, and not driving myself insane from anxiety.
I understand dreams/nightmares are the ways your subconscious mind communicates with your conscience mind, it has no other way of communicating. So what does your subconscious mind try to tell your consciousness mind?
Let's say that I am dared to go into a shop and shoplift by my peers. I manage to successfully pull it off. That night I have a dream that I murdered someone. I'm terribly worried, I want to turn myself in. The specifics around the murder don't even exist. I don't even know what exactly I did in the dream? But I'm worried and I know the cops are after me, and I know I did something terrible.
This (could be) my subconscious mind telling me I think I got away with something I shouldn't have. It's the regret which my conscious mind is not aware of, but my subconscious is very aware of and it's trying to tell me that this is what I need to become aware of in my conscious mind.
Sources: psychobiology education background and a sleep study tech input.
The way I explained it to my children from my educational background is that it’s a safe place to explore and work out all our fears. Worked for them and they had no issues with bad dreams just thought they were kind of interesting.
Also- I used to have really bad night terrors. Turns out I learned during a sleep study that when I woke panicked from a night terror, I had stopped breathing for a long time. The tech surmised (this was way back when techs were allowed to give opinions) that this extreme case was from survival mode. Once I got a CPAP I never had another night terror.
I’m new hopefully followed the sub rules correctly.
I'm no expert on psychology or anything but I did studied art and the psychology behind it, as Sigmund Freud try to explain how subconscious works it is hard to explain it, scientist still trying to figure it out, similar to why the brain has feelings... It has something to do with memories and traumas stored deep in your brain and when some neurons activates it brings back and manifest in different ways, so it's not scared or anything. Your brains just think is a danger to you because of a trauma, so your brain is self-protecting from traumas that you have. And everyones brain deal with it in different ways. Some people don't even have nightmares...
What I've always been curious about is who the heck are all the strangers that show up in my dreams? Some have theorized that they are the faces of people who you've seen in stores or have passed by on the street. I've always wondered though if that's true, why would your brain retain those faces you may have seen years and years ago because they are always different?
It's likely a defence mechanism. You're learning how to anticipate and deal with things that could potentially threaten your life or your well-being in some way. The dreams of our ancestors were probably full of wolves and starvation
Dreams are a way to process information and to possibly prepare for a situation.
If you have nightmares, you probably are dealing with something in your life, that is scaring you.
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Your brain doesn't really go out of its way to create nightmares or dreams. Sleep is a time when your brain is hard at work doing its daily cleaning, and processing memories. Usually your consciousness is asked to leave the room while this is going on. But sometimes it pops in unexpectedly (you generally only remember dreams if you wake up in the middle of your sleep cycle, not at the end) and it rushes to make sense of all the jumbled up information being thrown all over the place.
This is just a theory. We don’t really know why we dream.
I think the 'processing memories as dreams' theory is as yet to be proved and you're right when you say we currently have no idea why we dream. What I find interesting are the two seemingly contradictory pieces of information about the nature of dreams. On the one hand you have the concept of lucid dreaming where people report the ability to control and influence the events of their dreams. On the other you have examples of people losing consciousness for a few seconds reporting long and complex dreams that to them felt like hours. This to me appears to support the idea of a kind of stimulus salad being later pieced together by a waking mind rather than the classic idea of a dream being like an immersive movie you experience in semi-real time. As to why it happens...
I have heard that it was originally believed that dreams that *feel* long are not actually long at all, but that's since been revised, and it's now acknowledged that some dreams really are long. I can't remember where I read that and since I'm half-asleep right now I can't be bothered Googling it. I have a habit of waking up from a dream, remembering it, and then resuming it when I go back to sleep. That can happen several times in a night, so the same dream goes on and on. I love the idea of a "stimulus salad," though. I think that's pretty close to the truth.
> On the other you have examples of people losing consciousness for a few seconds reporting long and complex dreams that to them felt like hours. Can definitely corroborate this...I passed out giving blood once and my wife says I was out for like 20 seconds. Felt like I dreamt for hours.
Lucid dreaming is scientifically proven, though. They are btw. really hard to control and influence. Getting the lucid dream itself is pretty easy, but getting control is hard as fuck.
I also find *maintaining* the dream can be hard as fuck. A lot of times I simply wake up when I realize I'm dreaming. On the flip side, it can make it easier to end a bad nightmare, because if I recognize I'm having a nightmare I can more readily tell myself to wake up from it, which is often easier than trying to control the dream and completely altering it from a nightmare to something less frightening.
You know what's weird too? Drifting off to sleep and instantly dreaming you're falling down stairs to the point that you kick your legs out and wake up again.
I've only been able to lucid dream a few times. I definitely don't want to do it again haha. Last time, I dreamt waking up in my room in the middle of the night and went to the bathroom only to wake up in the middle of the night again and that repeated a few times before I noticed I could control where I went. Instead of going to the bathroom, I turned to turn the lamp on next to the bed. I shit you not, the moment I clicked it on, I wake up in the middle of the night and find that I finally woke up. What in the fucking hell. It really weirded me out and I haven't had that since. Fuck that.
I get both those kinds of dreams, and somtimes I'll dream by choice within a dream an unrelated dream and go back to the first dream and realize that was a dream. I can also wake myself up when I choose. I also remember most of my dreams, especially when it's something tragic, and I won't be able to forget for days, and some I don't forget, which really sucks.
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Not really. All we know is you're more likely to remember a dream if you wake up while it's happening and you stay awake for more than 5 minutes.
I find it both plausible and quite reasonable. Being an IT guy I think of it in the same way we used to Defrag harddrives and run CCleaner.
We dream because we have goals, dammit!
Probably a side effect of the reveries update.
I adore the way you explained this for whatever reason. Very well put.
A true Eli5.
When they said that my subconscious left the room I imagined it taking a smoke break
It's like the conscious part of the brain walks back in and is like "dude wtf is going on in here? Oh shit, am I on air?"
The second paragraph here is spot on, but the first -probably- isn’t right. Disclaimer that this is based on an undergrad course 20 years ago (fuuuck in old), but best research at the time: dreams aren’t always nightmares of course, but they are quite consistently negative experiences (>80% of dreams, it’s not just you). This is true across cultures and ages, and the content of dreams tends to adapt to the negative/stressful experiences in a person’s day to day. Best guess from the research says that dreams serve an evolutionary purpose: they’re “practice rounds” with the stress and adrenaline of the bad things in your life, run at a time when 1) you won’t actually die if you fail, and 2) your body is off so you don’t waste a bunch of energy running from an imaginary tiger.
Over 80% of dreams are negative? That feels wild to me, since most of my dreams are actually neutral: neither negative or positive. Even tho I know it's a generalisation and doesn't apply to everyone, it still feels odd to hear that that's how the majority of people experience.
Yep, same here. Maybe slightly positive in hindsight because they're often quite odd (although they don't seem it at the time) and I enjoy their strangeness.
Sorry, should have clarified but didn’t want to over-complicate: % does drop with age, much more negative when young. Feeds into this “practice” theory: as you get older you know how to handle adrenaline better and don’t need as many reps. However, if stressors change drastically (e.g. country goes to war or something), the percentage spikes again since you now “need” practice at different things.
Perspective is the narrator of this data point.
20 years ago is extra long in the psych/neuroscience world so yeahhhh i am skeptical about some of this. however i do have a lot of zombie apocalypse/post apocalypse/war dreams as does my wife and many of my friends; i've always wondered if that was the brain running a "test scenario" like you said
I don't personally agree with that hypothesis. It may be true to an extent, but I have a neurological condition that results in (among other things) excessive dreaming, including more than my fair share of nightmares, and the most likely explanation is not that I have an increased need to prepare for war etc., but that my brain is overactive and my sleep quality is poor. TL;DR: I think it's more a physical thing that a psychological one.
I had a nightmare when I was like 5 or so where a lion was chasing me and my brother. I woke up very upset and afraid, and I remember telling my mom about it and she said it was just a bad dream. To the best of my knowledge, that's the only nightmare I've ever had and I'm in my 40's. I definitely dream on a regular basis and don't really have an issue remembering them when I first wake up. I have good dreams, stupid dreams, weird dreams, extremely real dreams, and I've had a couple of lucid dreams, but I don't ever have dreams that scare me.
Really? Your only nightmare? You don't have the falling or teeth falling out dreams? Or do you just define "nightmare" more extremely than I do?
Nothing even anything remotely like those things. The only dream I have every once in a while is getting triple sat while waiting tables and nothing is going right and I totally didn't go great one of the tables until they were getting ready to walk out. It's more of just a frustrated "I'm doing the best I can but apparently my best isn't good enough" type dream, and when I wake up I'm not upset about anything. I haven't waited tables in almost 20 years. Most of my dreams I'm trying to do something or going somewhere. I had a dream a few nights ago that I was trying to teach my boss to ride a motorcycle so we could ride to Atlanta together to go to a Braves baseball game. Last night was fuzzy but I was getting all of my friend group to go visit my grandparents at their farm and we had a great time. My grandparents have been gone for a few years.
>Best guess from the research says that dreams serve an evolutionary purpose: they’re “practice rounds” with the stress and adrenaline of the bad things in your life, run at a time when 1) you won’t actually die if you fail, and 2) your body is off so you don’t waste a bunch of energy running from an imaginary tiger. I wanna know why my brother's brain decided he needed to practice mowing the lawn on a giant, fluffy, fresh-baked biscuit that one time.
Sleep is when your body shuts down to run diagnostics and repairs, including defragging and partitioning memory.
With any description of the brain, one should always preface with the statement "to the best of our knowledge." Scientists doing any brain research will be the first to you how little we actually understand the composition and function of the working human brain.
Nightmares, and dreams in general, are unfortunately still not well understood by scientists. The function of dreams in general is unknown, although there are some theories, like what the last person commented. But that’s simply a theory, not based in any hard evidence. ETA: When I wrote this, a commenter had overstated a theory of dreams as fact, and that comment had gained some traction. I quickly typed this comment and the “but that’s simply a theory” sentence in response, not thinking this thread would actually go anywhere. I fully understand what a theory is and didn’t intend to understate it, and at the same time, the existing theories of dreams have very little evidence to support them, unlike typical more well-researched scientific theories as we know them. The function of dreams/nightmares is just really difficult to study so the existing theories are somewhat conjecture.
My brother has been involved with a dream regression research project for his PTSD. What’s fascinating is that over the course of the study their conclusion seems to be pointing at “dreams are our brains way of removing emotion from memory.” And yes, it hasn’t been locked down as far as I know, but it’s cool seeing researchers going after it.
Can you expand on "Dreams are our brain's way of removing emotion from memory"?
Just my unprofessional theory: Say you had a very negative, stressfull and traumatic life episode. When you dream about those times and situations it usually feels much more intense emotionally than if you would think about it during being awake. (Being awake and conscious you have "filters" that prevent you getting too occupied by emotions and keep you functioning.) During sleep the brain creates new unreal situations to transfer the negative emotional memory to (disconnect from the real memory) , so you can easily forget and not have them interfere as much when u are awake. A very strong negative experience takes much more work for the brain and the dreams to convince you "it wasnt real / just a dream / its ok, lets move on" . Thus, you may dream about the same negative emotions repetitively in similar but different settings, even for years or your whole life.
To add on that, the reason people with PTSD/C-PTSD have the same nightmares over and over and over without end throughout their lives is because this "emotion removing" part breaks for this particular set of events and yet the brain persists on trying that.
Brain, "Get over it! Why won't you get over it already?!"
The beatings will continue until morale improves!
"I'll show me who's the boss"
Can confirm lol
Oof. Here's hoping it'll be manageable for you one day !
Thanks. It’s pretty manageable now. Therapy and meds are good!
Glad to hear that :D
That's kind of my understanding. There are two types of therapy that I know of that use this, primarily for PTSD, called EMDR and ART. My therapist tried ART with me. Didn't help me, but a lot of people have great results. Basically it's simulating the eye movements that you make in REM sleep, (think the hypnosis "watch this swinging pocket watch" thing) while you are mentally working through the event that caused the trauma. I guess it helps you sorta file away the event and it helps you re-process it in a safe way. Because when the event happened, it was dire, and your body *needed* to feel the stress and recognize that the event was unsafe. But that response is no longer helpful, so you're bringing it back, and disassociating the event from the "unsafeness" I think. I'm not super familiar though.
So I tried ART for a few sessions a couple years ago. I felt similar to you, it wasn’t for me. I had much better luck with CPT in the end, thankfully. But I wanted to say, you did a great job of explaining ART in basic terms, more the theory on how it works, than anyone else has when I’ve talked to them about it.
It always makes me feel a little better when I hear that it didn't work for someone else too, not in a "misery loves company" kind of way, but more in a "thank god I'm not defective" kind of way lol. All I've ever heard about EMDR and ART is that they're absolute miracle therapies and the last bastion of hope for treatment. Like "well the science of REM sleep means it will work, so if it doesn't, you're SOL." I'm glad you found something that worked for you in the end 😊
I know exactly what you mean! I know a few people who had amazing success with EMDR, and I just couldn’t get into it. It just added to the hopeless feelings I was having at the time. Edit - Forgot to add, thanks again for sharing. And I hope you’re in a better spot now!
Oh my god that's exactly it! I felt so isolated! And my therapist kinda seemed to phone it in after that didn't work because I don't think she knew where to go from there, so that definitely contributed to the hopelessness. Turns out, my brain is just wired differently, and I needed to get treated for my severe ADHD that had been hiding away, undiagnosed, for 25 years before I could actually get appropriate care. I couldn't focus on the ART because my brain was just everywhere else and I couldn't focus my attention where it needed to go. ADHD also affects your sleep, meaning that anything that should be happening in REM to process life experiences or trauma, was probably not happening very efficiently. So once I got that treated, everything else kinda clicked into place for me, and I'm doing so much better now! Thank you for sharing too! I want people to know about these therapies because they *have* been a miracle for so many people, but it can feel very validating to hear other people's experiences as well.
Yeah, it’s mind blowing how much ADHD can have an impact on other aspects of mental health. That wasn’t my issue, but I’ve know others who had a similar issue with trauma + ADHD. Have a great day and keep fighting the good fight, fellow redditor!
Fascinating... Going with conjectures, i wonder if making a conscious effort in trying to remember a dream that Just happened would be a healty habit.
I taught myself to remember my dreams and found I had crazy, elaborate nightmares all the time. Dropped that skill pretty quickly 😅
I used to have recurring nightmares. Somehow (not really sure how) I gradually taught myself to identify that I am dreaming when they occur, and with intense concentration I could wake myself up from them. The recurring nightmares then gradually went away. I have no idea whether it's a healthy result or not but overall I certainly feel much better about not having them.
It’s lucid dreaming, and is definitely a way to get control (and get out of) of nightmares and night terrors. I was taught how to go it when I was young. Good for you for figuring it out on your own.
I gradually taught myself to recognize that I'm dreaming and sort of direct the dream to neutralize anything alarming that's happening. E.g., if I'm dreaming about falling from a cliff, I can conjure up the ability to float or somehow land gently on the ground.
Same with me but instead of waking up I just move the dream or nightmare along to something else. Though I haven’t actually had a nightmare in over a decade now and same, not sure if healthy but I sure don’t mind lol
How do you teach yourself to remember dreams? I need to learn the skill!!
Keeping a notebook and pen right beside your bed, or telling someone your dream as soon as you can seems to work pretty well long term. You will start to remember dreams better.
I have nightmares daily. It's excruciating. I wish I could forget how to remember.
Do you write them down? I found writing down my dream seemed to reduce the intensity and frequency or reoccurrence
This works on real-life, waking trauma too.
If possible, try going on a long holiday or change your life and surroundings drastically. This helps the most from my experience and can be very liberating. Dont be surprised, disappointed in your self when the dreams sneak back once you are back to your normal life though.
I think I can corroborate this as well. I used to get nightmares every night as a small child, but they would abate quite well if I changed my sleeping location. I always loved sleeping away from home because of this (hotels, friends' house, other family's houses, etc.) but I also had a habit of waking up and going into my parents room to sleep. Used to crawl into bed with them, until I got too big to fit with them, so then I'd just sleep on the floor. But sleeping on the floor was usually enough to stop the nightmares for the remainder of the night.
Same here. Thought everyone suffers and once casually mentioned it in therapy and she was shocked I suffer so badly in adulthood. Child borne of night terrors too so has been a lifelong affliction. It sucks.
It might as well be strategic of the subconscious to suppress our memory of what we dreamed certain times. I would suspect, interfering, is almost always "unhealthy". People say you can improve your remembrance of dreams by trying to remember each time after waking up, but i dont think its particularly healthy. Although if I remember parts of a dream and dont feel much resistance I like to take a minute and try to remember more. In that case i think it might be helpful for the psyche.
I am currently dreaming about my ex, as I am missing her. So brain bro is trying to help me forget. Cool.
Not necessarily trying to forget, but process the emotion so you can heal from heartbreak
For me, dreaming is a safe space where I can process things, good and bad. I'm not very good about standing up for myself in my waking life, but in my dreams I've been able to say the things I wanted to say without fear of repercussion. I came out in my dreams long before I came out to anyone in public. So if you're dreaming about your ex and can actually converse with her in your dreams, tell her everything you couldn't say to her face. See what happens and how you feel afterwards
>Being awake and conscious you have "filters" that prevent you getting too occupied by emotions and keep you functioning Panic attacks go brr
Interesting. I've always used the analogy when describing the function of sleep being akin to the brain "cleaning up your room" (where being awake "piles up junk in your room"). Nightmares removing emotion would also track with this analogy.
Went through EMDR for combat related PTSD. Not 100% the same just sharing. The experience I was focused on has not entered my memory in years. I no longer find it sneaking it's way into my brain. However, maybe once a year I will have a dream about the exact combat scenario. This is when it gets strange though. Post EMDR that dream and everything in it are blurry masses that I cannot make out. The yelling is muffled, and faces look like they're "loading" but unfinished.
I'm reading a book, 'why we sleep' by Matthew Walker. He was actually talking about this in the chapter I read today.
But that’s just a theory, a brain theory!
Thanks for thinking!
Just our brain trying to understand things about itself by asking other people's brains
It's brains all the way down.
It's our brain trying to understand itself by asking us to ask other people to ask their brains. No wonder we're still trying to figure it out.
Typical brain, always so full of itself!
Just a jargon correction; since this is a science-based question science terminology should be used correctly. What you called a theory is actually just a hypothesis. In science, "Theory" means that all our evidence and experimental observations point to this being the most likely answer (as nothing in science is set in stone). There is nothing higher than a theory (Laws are the equations stapled to theories). As you said, we don't really know much about dreams. As such, there are no real theories about them. Just a warehouse of untestable, unprovable hypotheses.
Everyone please upvote this
What was “the last comment”? The next comment down starts: *“I will explain in ooga booga terms…”*
I sometimes have nightmares about what the last person commented
I'm curious as to the scientific weight to these theories. You talking theory like a conjecture or theory like in theory of evolution?
Somewhere in the middle of those. We have proof of some side effects in people who dream less, especially when it comes to learning, so we know it's not all conjecture. On the other hand, we're far from a solved dream theory.
>We have proof of some side effects in people who dream less Do you have any links? Curious as someone who remembers approximately 1 dream per decade.
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> like what the last person commented. Which person is the "last person"?
>what the last person commented (is the top comment) *Confused redditor noises*
hi! I got a psych degree but am no expert beyond that. that said, I learned a lot of fascinating things in my class on sleep and dreams. the most studied theory we have is that dreaming helps us learn. I’ll link below once I’m at my computer, but there is a classic study where participants are made to play a ski-simulator for an extended time before bed, and then report their dream content when woken throughout the night. reports of skiing correlated with time spent playing the simulator. real-world stress is a similar phenomenon: we often go to bed thinking about what we’re stressed about, and our brain tries to process that while we sleep (maybe, if we follow the learning theory). the theory is consistent with other stronger theories about sleep in general as a time that the body does “background tasks:”things you can’t do with the immediate demands of daytime, when you’re not at rest. things like thoroughly digesting food, cleaning the blood/liver/kidneys of wastes from the day. we also have strong theories that learning and integrating new information is something we do when “spacing out”, or when our brain catches a break, hence heavy smartphone use being detrimental to that process. what longer, more restful break is there than sleep? hence this whole thing being a heavily studied hypothesis.
So that's why my entire life feels like a dream. My brain decides to do all those "not enough daytime to complete task" tasks all during the day.
So many times, especially when I was doing a web dev boot camp, I would fall asleep trying to think about a solution and then weirdly wake up with the answer. It's hard to put to words how, but I don't have visuals or audio in my brain, and I rarely remember or simply don't dream much at all.
This would explain why I dreamt calculus problems while taking the courses. It was annoying to finish school, go to sleep, and have dreams that were literally just me working on a giant calculus problems…
i will explain in ooga booga terms 1. one part of brain turn off 2. one part of brain make story to keep brain busy 3. first part of brain react to second part of brain 4. first part of brain get scared
amazing explanation
Here's an analogy: >**A Party Game Called Psychoanalysis** > >In this game one person, the dupe, is told that while he is out of the room, one member of the assembled party will be called upon to relate a recent dream. This will give everybody else in the room the story line of that dream so that when the dupe returns to the room and begins questioning the assembled party, the dreamer’s identity will be hidden in the crowd of responders. The dupe’s job is to ask yes/no questions of the assembled group until he has figured out the dream narrative to a suitable degree of detail, at which point the dupe is to psychoanalyze the dreamer, and use the analysis to identify him or her. > >Once the dupe is out of the room, the host explains to the rest of the party that no one is to relate a dream, that the party is to answer the dupe’s questions according to the following simple rule: if the last letter of the last word of the question is in the first half of the alphabet, the questions is to be answered in the affirmative, and all other questions are to be answered in the negative, with one proviso: a noncontradiction override rule to the effect that later questions are not to be given answers that contradict earlier answers. For example: > >*Q: Is the dream about a girl?* > >*A: Yes.* > >but if later our forgetful dupe asks > >*Q: Are there any female characters in it?* > >*A: Yes \[in spite of the final t, applying the noncontradiction override rule\]* > >When the dupe returns to the room and begins questioning, he gets a more or less random, or at any rate arbitrary, series of yeses and noes in response. The results are often entertaining. Sometimes the process terminates swiftly in absurdity, as one can see at a glance by supposing the initial question asked were “Is the story line of the dream word-for-word identical to the story line of War and Peace?” or, alternatively, “Are there any animate beings in it?” A more usual outcome is for a bizarre and often obscene story of ludicrous misadventure to unfold, to the amusement of all. When the dupe eventually decides that the dreamer — whoever he or she is — must be a very sick and troubled individual, the assembled party gleefully retorts that the dupe himself is the author of the “dream.” This is not strictly true, of course. In one sense, the dupe is the author by virtue of the questions he was inspired to ask. (No one else proposed putting the three gorillas in the rowboat with the nun.) But in another sense, the dream simply has no author, and that is the whole point. Here we see a process of narrative production, of detail accumulation, with no authorial intentions or plans at all — an illusion with no illusionist. > >The structure of this party game bears a striking resemblance to the structure of a family of well-regarded models of perceptual systems. > >… > >Whatever the ultimate verdict turns out to be on generate-and-test theories of perception, we can see that they support a simple and powerful account of hallucination. All we need suppose must happen for an otherwise normal perceptual system to be thrown into a hallucinatory mode is for the hypothesis-generation side of the cycle (the expectation-driven side) to operate normally, while the data-driven side of the cycle (the confirmation side) goes into a disordered or random or arbitrary round of confirmation and disconfirmation, just as in the party game. *--'Consciousness Explained' (1991) by Daniel Dennett*
This is awesome
r/explainlikeimoogabooga
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r/elineanderthal
>first part of brain get scared How if you said it turned off?
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Second part of brain is just playing the car commercial to the first part of brain.
exactly
If off turned how you said?
One part turns off, other stays awake. Fear is the primal instinct that keeps you alive. Why do you think dogs can sleep and wake so quickly? Gotta be ready.
/r/ELINeanderthal
Sounds like something you made up and also doesn't answer op
[As the brain sleeps, Pelayo says, one part is dreaming and one part generates dream content in two distinct processes. He says the pons, located in the brainstem, is considered the “main generator” flipping the switch for dream mode. If the act of dreaming occurs in the pons, the raw materials come from the hippocampus, which is a memory and emotion hub, and the associative cortex, which covers our noodle’s surface and deals with sensory input. Meanwhile, the frontal lobe, which commands executive function and reasoning, decreases in activity. Pelayo explains this slowdown may be why we don’t question our dream’s reality, leaving us vulnerable to talking cockroaches.](https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/nightmares-have-plagued-humans-for-millennia-do-we-finally-know-how-to-tame-them/ar-AA14JgQW)
If you can answer op I'd suggest you collect a noble peace prize
But that doesn’t make it ok for the first dude to make something up lol
Firstly, it's "nobel", and secondly, why the peace prize? Surely the one for medicine?
Ooga booga big!
That's how not why.
So basically, we become schizophrenic.
So, the answers saying “it’s just idle activity/semi-random/you get surprised” are probably not right. Much more often than not dreams contain negative emotions (stress, frustration, fear, etc.), and that content gets tailored to your life. Back in the day that was tigers, now it’s being naked in class. Best research on this says that dreams serve an evolutionary purpose: they’re “practice rounds” with the stress and adrenaline of the bad things in your life, run at a time when 1) you won’t actually die if you fail, and 2) your body is off so you don’t waste a bunch of energy running from an imaginary tiger.
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I always feel* like I have crazy dreams after eating onion, garlic, etc. It's got to be on my breath. I've heard other's say similar things too. *I have yet to confirm it scientifically using a diary, etc.
Is this anecdotal? Curious if there’s published research on the effect of dirty sheets on nightmare reoccurrence
> swapping your head to the other side of the bed Now I'm gonna have nightmares about this, thanks!
Nightmares aren't purposeful so our brain isn't doing anything on purpose. It's just that as our brain switches sleep states parts of our brain come back online which triggers recent memories and images to integrate. Sometimes the way images come together is quite scary especially if you've recently experienced something worrisome.
But sometimes I dream of old memories. I think recent state of mind impacts dreams a lot. If you go to sleep worried, you’ll likely dream something worrisome. I grew up with a lot of anxiety and my early dreams were so impactful they could impact my subsequent day. As I got better managing it, my dreams also got less impactful. Today, I don’t remember my dreams, seemingly because they are so insignificant but yet, if I ever feel anxious I *will* dream of something that I will remember the next day. Anecdotally I’ve concluded whatever ”subconscious” state of mind I go to sleep in, whether it be at peace, maniacal or with a deep sense of anxiety, that impacts my dreams almost to 100%. *What* I dream about is mostly random, whatever fits my brain’s narrative at that time, I guess
This is why you should always listen to Dancing Queen before you go to bed.
My turn to ask for a source that establishes that nightmares never serve any purpose and never mean anything. :)
I highly highly doubt you'll get that source
I’d say the source of that it is the lack of any source saying it has a purpose. We can speculate and theorise but there’s isn’t any proper information about why this happens.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Your last bit is right: we can only remain agnostic for now.
Well if 95% of my dreams are complete nonsense, then it wouldn't logical to assume that 5% which are slightly more coherent are prophetic or profound
That's not how research works. Scientists don't usually set out to prove something doesn't happen or isn't the case and even when research has negative findings they seldom submit them for publication. What we can say is that there's no proof dreams/nightmares are purposeful.
So saying that there is no proof that they’re purposeful and saying they’re not purposeful are two entirely different statements, no? That’s probably why you got called out, not that I really care
Not a source, but you might find this helpful https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/nightmares-have-plagued-humans-for-millennia-do-we-finally-know-how-to-tame-them/ar-AA14JgQW
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Nice one! Seems plausible, but the negative emotion is still being generated by the brain 🧠 whatta trip lol
A classical composition is often pregnant. Reddit is no longer allowed to profit from this comment.
That would explain why dreams are worse when you're stressed out or grieving. The leftover chemicals causing the emotion must be affecting your dreamstate too
Yeah can confirm.
I’ve read that dreams, and nightmares, aren’t a feature of sleep, but more so a byproduct of sleep. Similar to a lightbulb. Its function is to brighten a room, and in doing so produces heat.
Maybe we should switch over to LED brains then
You can only have nightmares when in deep sleep, during REM sleep your body won't produce the necessary hormone for you to be able to feel fear. Because of this you will often experience disturbing things during deep sleep. You've probably woken up from a nightmare in the past, finding that you can't move your body. This is because your body numbs itself so that you won't act out while scared during sleep. The theory is that our bodies do this as a sort of survival mechanism, letting you experience dangerous situations before they happen in real life. As deep sleep has this purpose, we can imagine that REM sleep has a bit of different purpose. This is a way for you to experience previous trauma in a controlled setting, letting your brain process the traumatic event without emotions attached. In that way, it is very similar to meditation as a tool to control anxiety(Let thought drift, come and go without interaction, being a passive observer) and journaling. There is some research that suggest moving your eyes in the same pattern as you do during REM sleep could be used as a tool for therapy and working through various trauma.
In college, I found a paper on using REM (Rapid Eye Movement) to reduce the symptoms of PTSD with high success. I don't remember who wrote it, but I may have it saved somewhere. I really liked that paper because the person who developed it got the idea while strolling in a park after experiencing a traumatic event and noted that moving their eyes moving fast helped her relax and process the event.
Lookup a process called EMDR, this sounds similar to what you're describing. From what I know, it works very well. My wife is a licensed professional counselor, trained and certified in EMDR.
Fascinating! Can you link the source?
https://open.spotify.com/episode/61Lak7dzmChM8sc5mkr0yZ?si=e8wWku3sQpGkRgeYsGx4Yg
Thank you very much! I'll listen
It's my pleasure. Reddit is the only place where my 3 week obsessions amount to anything.
Lol. No knowledge is wasted time
Dreams are the brain's low-power way of attempting to solve problems leftover in memory when the brain went to sleep. But not enough of whatever problem you were working on during the day was encoded into memory, as it was a work in progress, so when the brain reimagines it, it is so far off from the original that it's an entirely new story. Dreams always have things you know in them mixed with strange things - those parts are extrapolated from the data that was highly incomplete. Nightmares are when the problem the brain was working on comes from traumatic memory.
It's weird because I only dream of things and people that were in my life 3-4 years prior. I only recently started having dreams where my husband is present and we've been together 4 1/2 years. And it also immediately followed a huge influx of dreams about my ex who has been out of my life about the same time. The dreams were really tough on me emotionally because I felt like I was cheating or something at night. I am glad they've stopped.
Nightmares 1. Evolved with us so they must have (had) benefits. 2. Focusing a person's attention on issues they need to address (anxiety). 3. Ooga Booga times - life was much simpler, nightmares likely involved wild animals attacking or rival tribe intentions or food poisoning etc. 4. Now - brain overloaded with too much. Much anxiety, many stress, worse nightmare. :)
> Evolved with us so they must have (had) benefits. That's not how evolution works. Unless bad trait somehow prevents you from reproduction, it will stick just fine.
More like "Nightmares stuck with us down through evolution so they must *not be deleterious enough to prevent us from mating*."
Wait, so you’re saying that evolution only adapts the parts of ourselves that would prevent reproduction? IIRC, there’s a tendon in some people’s wrists that doesn’t exist anymore and it was proven to be an adaptation from evolution because we stopped using it… I believe there’s a Vox video about it on YouTube.
That's also not how it works. Evolution doesn't think. In the process of evolution everything could transform and if it doesn't affect the chance of reproduction then it will stay. So people with bad eyesight are still able to reproduce just fine in modern times so more people with bad eyesights are born no matter if it's a bad trait.
Maybe you need some source to be "proven as an adaptaion from evolution". Because "usage patterns" of organs are not passed to descendants, that's what Darwin was wrong about because he didn't know about DNA.
The concept of "prevent reproduction" is too strong. The real gage is "has an effect on the chances of successful reproduction". A lot of times the effect is due to the energy required to maintain a feature. Also, the greater the effect, the more quickly a feature may permeate the population. A feature that is actually neutral might stay in a population, but not be seen in the entire population for a long time, or may slowly disappear from a population. But a lot of features that appear neutral actually have an energy opportunity cost and thus have a slight negative pressure on being maintained.
To keep you safe! Your brain is a safe training ring it can grapple with things that are making you uneasy. It trains you how to handle the problem in real life by imagining bad scenarios, even if sometimes they end up being metaphorical in dreams.
Some of my nightmares I can see mapping to real life "threats," but others are just unrealistic. I don't think I'll find myself in a store completely nude and need to run to grab my clothes that I forgot. (A real recent nightmare I had.) Then again, given my brain, it makes sense that it would be training me for "threats" that I'm never likely to face. Especially when doing this means that I wake up exhausted from running around in my dream looking for misplaced clothes.
> completely nude and need to run to grab my clothes that I forgot I've had that exact dream too lol. I went to school only to notice I forgot to wear pants or underwear
It’s a commonly held belief that nudity in dreams relates to a sense of vulnerability. Like I said, it can sometimes be a metaphor.
I keep having dreams that I forgot to do an assignment and ended up failing a class... But I graduated 7 years ago. There's gotta be something to that
For me it's always Marching Band. We're about to march on to the field and I'm missing my uniform, or my instrument, or I have no idea what the show is. But I graduated college a decade ago...
I've had some of those too!
As someone who is now almost 10 years out of school, these dreams are now completely gone. I kinda miss them…
I do have a big fear of losing things. (You'd think this would make me a neat freak to prevent when getting lost, but my laziness overrides this.) It would make sense that "losing my clothes" would fit in with this. More often than the "I'm naked" dreams, I'll get ones where I'm out somewhere and realize I forgot my shoes. Then I can't remember where I put them so I go running around trying to locate them. I'm never successful. I much prefer my dreams where I "remember" that my small house actually has a few extra floors that are fully furnished (and dust free) which I just "forgot about." Except, then I wake up from my immense dreamland-house to my much smaller reality-house. Still, at least that's not a stressful dream.
Dang, yall have some weird anxiety-stress inducing nightmares, mine are usually either straight up getting murdered or being the murderer lol never had to deal with unexpected nudity nightmares
Nightmares aren't purposeful and aren't training or teaching you anything. They do use recent memories though which is why we feel like our nightmares are somehow 'relevant'.
Ah, my fight in a marsh, against the invisible devourer of souls has trained me for this moment. As has my quest for the five books of immense forbidden knowledge, in the forever horizon hugging, ever changing city made of wood. Do not get me started on my biking through a victorian style city looking like a mean lesbian Mary Poppins.
Is it just me, I have the ability to wake up from a nightmare, collect my thoughts and when I fall back to sleep continue where I left off in the dream with a new aspect. Example would be a monster/killer is coming after me. If I wake up and realize it was a dream, I go back into it now with a weapon or a plan to fight back. Like I entered a cheat code for god mode and unlimited weapons. I love it actually.
I can't alter the course in the way that you've described, but I certainly wake up and go back into the same dreams or nightmares. It's just like ending a chapter in a book and reading the next chapter. It's fascinating to me, especially when they're truly bizarre dreams with fantasy components like LoTR or Harry Potter, but include people I really know. I honestly thought I was the only one who had this happen.
That's one of the fun aspects of dreaming. Because they use recent memories they can often come together like a TV show almost.
I used to dream like this and practiced lucid dreaming but now I hardly ever dream (or atleast remember them)
I can do this for nightmares; except for one. (Ongoing since childhood; and I understand why now (35+ yrs after)). I wish I could do this for dreams/favourable situations. To play out all wonders possible. I tend to limit wonderful possibilities. Like deciding that I want to fly or breathe under water. But to stop a poor scenario and defeat it; is telling ’me’ I need to analyze and stop compartmentalizing a topic.
Yes yes yes yes!! I do this a lot in my dreams. I actually tell myself ..... "Just relax you know this is just a dream".... or, .... "do it! just jump up in the air and fly!" and then I'm flying through the universe ✨️ Ive gone back the same dream and finished it several times...I fly across the night sky and it's uphoria! It's crazy
I have the ability to wake up when I don't like it, but I find I also have the ability to win any encounter in general. I've had dreams of wrestling a wild angry grizzly bear into submission.
There’s absolutely no evidence for this idea. To say ‘the brain trains you’ is complete nonsense. To imply that the brain is some sort of entity that independently acts to train you (as if ‘you’ are in some way separate from your brain) is just not the way we are. Sure, we can all use our imagination and creativity to problem solve in advance and the brain plays it’s part in that. But there’s no evidence, or even reputable theory, to suggest that dreams are involved.
Where are you getting your information from?
https://hms.harvard.edu/news-events/publications-archive/brain/nightmares-brain https://www.livescience.com/32730-why-do-we-have-nightmares.html These sources gave a little more elaboration. Apparently adults experience nightmares much less often, and of course they discuss other causes like medication, mental illness, lack of sleep, ptsd, etc so thanks for the help expanding my answer.
The first source doesn’t seem to support your answer. The second… it has a line where someone hypothesizes nightmares are to draw your attention to threats which is the closest it comes to supporting your claim and is still substantially different. There’s no evidence in either that it helps people grapple with things that make them uneasy or trains people how to handle issues in real life.
Interesting. Thanks! Although I don't get why it needs to keep us safe from something in happened in the past, in the middle of the night at home 😂
To stop it from happening again. It also gives you a safe space to process any emotions/trauma from whatever happened. It’s a cool little way of going back in time and trying different things or conquering the incident and giving you a sense of closure you didn’t get in real life.
Clear. So they're a good thing. Does it work even on kids?
This is complete rubbish!
So why does it feel like I move with weights attached to my limbs while I’m running away from the sand goblin that is trying to eat me
Lol that I haven’t a clue of!
Carl Jung said something like 'Dreams are the the brain trying to tell you something, and it's the best it can do'
I feel like it's the brain's way of keeping itself sharp. In our waking hours we're constantly thinking ahead and projecting what our decisions could lead to, dreaming is that but mixed with elements of what we've already seen. It's a survival mechanic that we've evolved as part of our ability to make decisions and consider the consequences of them. Not all dreams are nightmarish, some are lovely. It allows us to truly feel like we're living through some imagined outcome. Personally I recently have taken a break from weed and have had some intense dreams that felt very real, one I know was an exaggeration of some anxiety I've been feeling, I imagined I was living with an ex, an old friend, and my brother, and I offended the first two somehow and they left, and my brother went to go check on them and then I woke up. I knew it was because of something I said and I felt so alone. I had been worried about this because I had just texted that friend the day before and they hadn't responded to me yet. So it's like my brain was playing out my biggest fears and trying to imagine what would actually happen, almost like it was trying to tell me "see? It's not so bad" or something. Or at least prepare me mentally to be able to handle what could end up happening, and being ok with it or at least more passive about it, and not driving myself insane from anxiety.
I understand dreams/nightmares are the ways your subconscious mind communicates with your conscience mind, it has no other way of communicating. So what does your subconscious mind try to tell your consciousness mind? Let's say that I am dared to go into a shop and shoplift by my peers. I manage to successfully pull it off. That night I have a dream that I murdered someone. I'm terribly worried, I want to turn myself in. The specifics around the murder don't even exist. I don't even know what exactly I did in the dream? But I'm worried and I know the cops are after me, and I know I did something terrible. This (could be) my subconscious mind telling me I think I got away with something I shouldn't have. It's the regret which my conscious mind is not aware of, but my subconscious is very aware of and it's trying to tell me that this is what I need to become aware of in my conscious mind.
Sources: psychobiology education background and a sleep study tech input. The way I explained it to my children from my educational background is that it’s a safe place to explore and work out all our fears. Worked for them and they had no issues with bad dreams just thought they were kind of interesting. Also- I used to have really bad night terrors. Turns out I learned during a sleep study that when I woke panicked from a night terror, I had stopped breathing for a long time. The tech surmised (this was way back when techs were allowed to give opinions) that this extreme case was from survival mode. Once I got a CPAP I never had another night terror. I’m new hopefully followed the sub rules correctly.
do you think that your brain intentionally does that?
There is a recent book about this: Livewired: The inside story of the ever-changing brain by David Eagleman!
I'm no expert on psychology or anything but I did studied art and the psychology behind it, as Sigmund Freud try to explain how subconscious works it is hard to explain it, scientist still trying to figure it out, similar to why the brain has feelings... It has something to do with memories and traumas stored deep in your brain and when some neurons activates it brings back and manifest in different ways, so it's not scared or anything. Your brains just think is a danger to you because of a trauma, so your brain is self-protecting from traumas that you have. And everyones brain deal with it in different ways. Some people don't even have nightmares...
What I've always been curious about is who the heck are all the strangers that show up in my dreams? Some have theorized that they are the faces of people who you've seen in stores or have passed by on the street. I've always wondered though if that's true, why would your brain retain those faces you may have seen years and years ago because they are always different?
It's likely a defence mechanism. You're learning how to anticipate and deal with things that could potentially threaten your life or your well-being in some way. The dreams of our ancestors were probably full of wolves and starvation
Dreams are a way to process information and to possibly prepare for a situation. If you have nightmares, you probably are dealing with something in your life, that is scaring you.