Dreams are one of the most incredibly enigmatic features of sleep. We dream every night, often involving incredible scenes and stories. In fact, dreams have inspired cultures worldwide for thousands of years. And what is even more fascinating is that we still have almost no idea why they occur.
Dr David Garley’s blog explores what we already know about dreams and some theories about the parts we aren’t yet so sure about.
“Why do we dream?” has been asked for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, and I suspect it will be asked for many years yet. Nobody really knows if there is a purpose or whether it’s just a by-product of the functions of the REM state of sleep.
Many early theories were that dreams originated from outside the body and might be ways the gods would communicate with you. One of the earliest records of this is in the Egyptian Book of Dreams from over 3,000 years ago.
A more modern theory suggests that dreams are vivid and emotionally intense (often involving situations like being chased) to give you an opportunity to process and regulate these emotions. It’s comparable to an ’emotional gymnasium’, as this ability to regulate emotions crosses over into your waking life through emotional stability. This fits with the current theories about the REM sleep state – that it is required for emotional regulation.
Another theory is that dreams help us process the day’s experiences. To learn effectively, we need to retain important memories while discarding unnecessary ones. REM sleep is thought to play a role in ‘pruning’ these memories so we don’t carry too much from each day.
Dreams appear to have a creative role – many great songs were reportedly dreamt, including ‘Yesterday’ by Paul McCartney, ‘Purple Haze’ by Jimi Hendrix, and ‘It’s the end of the world as we know it’, by (of course!) R.E.M.
You may be aware that there are several different states of sleep. These are broadly divided into two – one state features brisk fluttering eye movements, and so is known as rapid eye movement sleep, or REM. The other state does not feature these eye movements and is therefore called non-rapid eye movement sleep, or NREM.
It is often believed that dreaming only occurs in REM sleep, but dreaming actually occurs in all states of sleep, though the nature of the dreams is quite different.
NREM dreams consist of more scenes, images, or perhaps feelings. They are non-
narrative, in that a story is not usually unfolding.
REM dreams, however, are usually the dreams people think of when they talk about
dreaming. These are very vivid dreams that are so real that your body has to temporarily paralyse you during the dreams to stop you from acting them out, something called REM atonia. The only muscles that move during REM are your breathing muscles and those that move your eyes in that characteristic fashion.
In short – yes, well, sort of. The ability to remember dreams is very variable. What is also variable is the degree to which you know that you are dreaming – on the one hand, dreams can feel real, and on the other hand, you might know 100% that this is a dream. If you know that you are dreaming, it’s possible to go one step further and control your dreams, which is called ‘lucid dreaming’.
This is made possible by the fact that dreaming is a state of consciousness – different from being awake but still a kind of consciousness. And there is no hard border between the two.
There are certain conditions where sleep and wake can merge. Narcolepsy is a condition where the features of REM sleep can trespass into your waking life. Most famous is the sudden onset of REM atonia during wake, often triggered by a strong emotion.
A person with narcolepsy might laugh very hard, then fall to the floor temporarily paralysed but remain fully conscious. Narcolepsy also causes sudden attacks of sleep during the day. Another common feature is that REM dreaming may occur with full consciousness, and the dreamer can control their environment, have conversations with old friends, or even fly!
Lucid dreaming may occur in 80% of people with narcolepsy, but you don’t have to have narcolepsy to lucid dream, and it can be a learned skill.
Another sleep-related phenomenon, which is often confused with dreaming, is called a hypnogogic hallucination. The hypnogogic state occurs just as you are falling asleep. During this state, people commonly report that their legs jerk (known as a hypnogogic jerk), or they get that feeling of falling. But others report hearing bizarre sounds – the doorbell ringing or someone calling their name, and others see visual hallucinations. These experiences, although unusual, are harmless and differ from typical dreams.
Another feature during the hypnogogic state is that you can develop fantastic ideas. One scientist often found this to be the case and would try to cultivate the process. During the day, he would nap in his lab while holding a handful of steel ball bearings.
As he started to nap, he would enter the hypnogogic state where he would have his best creative thinking. As he started to sleep properly, he would lose his muscle tone and drop the ball bearings, waking him up, preventing him from going further into sleep and risking forgetting his hypnogogic thoughts. This man was Thomas Edison, who invented the lightbulb, which now is even the symbol of a good idea!
There are some problems you can run into with dreaming. While in narcolepsy, the REM atonia might be applied while you are awake, there are other conditions where the atonia can come off during a vivid dream, which results in you acting your dream out.
If you recall (if you can) your last vivid dream, you were probably being chased by pirates or swinging between buildings like Spiderman. Imagine acting this out. You would no doubt feel it in the morning, either from putting your back out or from injuring yourself on the bedside cabinet. There have been reports of serious injuries when this condition occurs.
In the modern world in which we live, where so much is known about everything, dreams remain a wonderful fortress of inscrutability. While simultaneously seeming to be messages from the gods or inspiring incredible music, they might equally not mean anything.
If you’d like greater insight into everything sleep-related, check out www.thebettersleepclinic.co.uk.