Why
do we dream?
Two different schools of thought exist as to why we dream:
the physiological school, and the psychological school.
Both, however, agree that we dream during the REM, or rapid
eye movement, phase of sleep. During this phase of sleep,
our closed eyes dart rapidly about, our brain activity peaks,
and our muscles suffer temporary paralysis.
The physiological theory centers upon how our body, specifically
our brains, function during the REM phase of sleep. Proponents
of this theory believe that we dream to exercise the synapses,
or pathways, between brain cells, and that dreaming takes
over where the active and awake brain leaves off. When awake,
our brains constantly transmit and receive messages, which
course through our billions of brain cells to their appropriate
destinations, and keep our bodies in perpetual motion. Dreams
replace this function.
Two underpinning physiological facts go towards supporting
this theory of dreams. The first lies in the fact that the
first two or so years of ones life, the most formative ones
for learning, are also the ones in which the most REM sleep
occurs. It follows that during this time of the greatest REM
sleep, we experience the greatest number of dreams. The second
physiological fact that lends credence to this theory is that
our brain waves during REM sleep, as recorded by machines
measuring the brain's electrical activity, are almost identical
in nature to the brain waves during the hours we spend awake.
This is not the case during the other phases of sleep.
Psychological theorists of dreams focus upon our thoughts
and emotions, and speculate that dreams deal with immediate
concerns in our lives, such as unfinished business from the
day, or concerns we are incapable of handling during the course
of the day. Dreams can, in fact, teach us things about ourselves
that we are unaware of.
Connections between dreams that the human psyche have been
made by many people over thousands of years. The famous Greek
philosopher, Aristotle wrote in his "Parva Naturalia,"
over 2,200 years ago, of a connection between dreams, waking
experiences, and emotional needs.
Others have delved into more complicated explanations for
dreams, such as the prophetic nature of dreams written of
in the Bible, which was and is a belief held by many cultures.
Sigmund Freud, one of the fathers of modern psychology, believed
dreams to be symbolic of any number of things buried deep
within our minds and our memories.
Until someone proves or disproves one of these theories,
or poses an alternate one, we are left at square one. Our
knowledge as to what causes us to dream is limited to the
fact that we do dream, and that dreams occur during the REM
phase of sleep. Sweet dreams!
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