Why do we dream 2011

What we see and experience in our dreams might not necessarily be real, but the emotions attached to these experiences certainly are.

Our dream stories essentially try to strip the emotion out of a certain experience by creating a memory of it.

This way, the emotion itself is no longer active. In fact, severe REM sleep-deprivation is increasingly correlated to the development of mental disorders.

In short, dreams help regulate traffic on that fragile bridge which connects our experiences with our emotions and memories. Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology? And have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to write about?

He can be reached at garethideas AT gmail. Sander van der Linden is a doctoral researcher in social experimental psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research is concerned with the process of behavioral change and funded by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. See Subscription Options. Discover World-Changing Science. Get smart. Sign up for our email newsletter. The dreamscape is the one place I am totally free, and practically a God!

Crazy as that sounds, I literally create the world around me, make the days longer create oceans, etc. Its so crazy and vivd.

Ok, so this is really interesting. The human mind, how it works, why we dream. I chose this book to explore whether our dreams do mean anything, and whether it does symbolise and influence our past and future. The points that I will be talking about The Interpretation of Dreams in my review is the theories of manifest and latent dream content, dreams as wish fulfilments, and the significance of childhood experiences.

Many people have had the experience of dreaming something that later actually did occur but is often a coincidence. However the dreamer may be making up ideas by pulling together information to figure conclusion that the mind could not make while awake. Although psychic studies have been performed, no evidence has truly provided the reason behind why people dream.

Psychologists have dug deep into a patients mind and dreams searching for a reason and explanation that a patient cannot figure out them selves While sleeping, the body undergoes noticeable changes. Hormones like adrenaline rise while blood pressure and heart beats increase as well. Since the beginning of time, dreams have been a source of mysterious wonder amongst people. Everyone dreams, and those who claim they do not, do dream, however, they are unable to recall their dreams.

Prior to psychological research, dreams were interpreted and explained as an unconscious desire, predictions, or subliminal messages. These outdated beliefs existed throughout time until new psychological research came into being. The new psychological research by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung gave rise to new dream theories that helped gain a greater understanding on dream interpretations.

When a dream is formed the subconscious mind draws these feelings etc. The study for dreams is called Oneirlogy In modern times dreams have been seen as a connection to the subconscious mind. Sigmund Freud is a theory that is still believed by many.

Freud thought the function of dreaming was to allow the discharge of repressed instinctual impulses in such a way as to preserve sleep. He also believed the instigating force behind dreams was always an instinctual and unconscious wish. Freud considered these wishes to be predominantly sexual in nature. In "Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis," he wrote: "Though the number of symbols is large, the number of subjects symbolized is not large. One theory that is prevalent today is that dreams result from the physiological "exercise" of the synapses of the brain.

There is no proven fact on why we dream, which is why there are so many theories on the topic. After these theories, others continued such as the Cayce theory in that dreams are our bodies means of building up of the mental, spiritual and physical well being. Finally came the argument between Evans' theory and the Crick and Mitchinson theory. Dreams are mysterious things that happen to everyone.