By Julia Nielsen
Dreams have fascinated humanity for as long as we've been having them. Do they foretell the future? Are they windows into hidden desires? What do the patterns and contents of our dreams mean?
Some people remember their dreams and others don't. Some people dream in colour and others in black and white. But everyone dreams. When our bodies enter the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stage of sleep we experience highly charged sensations, images, and emotions. But due to the unique nature of dreams these experiences are impossible to control and difficult to remember. To be classified as a dream the experience must have five basic components: intense emotions, illogical content/organization, bizarre and vivid sensations, uncritical acceptance of the unusual, and difficulty remembering the dream. The reason for these experiences lies in the physiology of the dreamer. REM sleep is called paradoxical sleep because the body is temporarily paralyzed, called atonia, but the brain is highly active. The brain is soaked in neurotransmitters during REM sleep and neurons are firing rapidly. This causes intense emotions and sensations, but the parts of our brain responsible for recording memories are less active, as are the parts responsible for higher logic. This results in the sensation of dreaming. If we begin to lucid dream (which means we become aware that we are dreaming and are able to control the dream) this is because we are exiting REM sleep and this is no longer considered a true dream. (There is also a debate about the existence and classification of lucid dreaming that we can discuss if you'd like).
There are many theories that seek to explain why humans dream. I will address four of these in my presentation: the psychoanalytic theories of desire manifestation and wish fulfillment, the theory of memory consolidation, and the activation synthesis theory. I will explain each of these theories and we will look at what our dreams would mean according to each. It will be up to you to decide why you believe humans dream as the science is still inconclusive. Many things about humans and the brain is still unknown, including why we dream and why we sleep. This is best summed up by the co-discoverer of REM sleep, William Demen, who said "The only reason we need to sleep that is really, really solid is because we get sleepy." Maybe philosophy will help get us closer to an answer.
