Why Do We Dream? Important Theories About The Causes Of Dreaming; In 3000 BC, Mesopotamian kings wrote and interpreted their dreams on wax tablets. A thousand years later, the Ancient Egyptians wrote a dream book. It contained more than a hundred dreams and dream interpretations.
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Why We Dream Studies!
Why Do We Dream? In later years, “What is a Dream?” We never stopped our research to understand the answer to the question and the reason why we dream. Therefore, after a lot of scientific research, technological advancement and determination, we still haven’t found definitive answers, but we have some interesting theories.
Theory – 1)
We dream to make our wishes come true.
In the early 1900s, Sigmund Freud suggested that all the dreams and nightmares we see are the sum of the images in our conscious daily life, in addition, they have symbolic meanings related to realizing our wishes in our subconscious.
Freud theorized that everything we remember when we wake up from a dream is a symbolic representation of our unconscious primal thoughts, impulses, and desires. By examining these remembered elements, Freud believed that the content of the unconscious could reach our consciousness and be revealed, and that the psychological problems that emerged as a result of suppressing this content could be addressed and resolved.
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Theory – 2)
We dream to remember.
Sleeping is good for increasing the efficiency of certain mental functions, but dreaming while sleeping is even better. In 2010, researchers found that subjects who tried to traverse a complex 3D maze were much more successful than subjects who fell asleep and dreamed about the maze before their second attempt. In fact, these subjects were ten times more successful than those who only thought of the maze while awake during the trials and did not fall asleep and dream about the maze.
Researchers have suggested that certain memory processes occur only during sleep, and that the dreams we see are indicative of these processes.
Theory – 3)
We dream to forget.
There are about 10,000 trillion neural connections in our brain. Everything we think and do creates these connections.
In 1983, according to the neurobiological dream theory called reverse learning, your neurocortex examines these neural connections and clears out unnecessary ones while you sleep, and especially during the REM sleep cycle. Without this forgetting process that causes us to dream, our brains can become flooded with unnecessary connections and parasitic thoughts can interfere with the thinking function that should be done while awake.
Theory – 4)
We dream so that our brain can work continuously.
According to the theory of continuous activation, dreams arise from the need to continuously consolidate and create long-term memories in order for the brain to function properly. When external information falls below a certain level, just like in sleep, our brain automatically triggers the production of information from memory stores, which returns to us in the form of thoughts and feelings that we experience in our dreams.
In other words, our dreams can be a screen saver that our brain activates during sleep so that our brain is not completely turned off.
Theory – 5)
We dream to rehearse.
Dreams involving dangerous and frightening situations occur frequently, and according to primitive instinct rehearsal theory, the content of a dream is important to its purpose.
Dreams, like being chased by a bear in the woods at midnight or fighting a ninja in a dark alley, allow us to experience our fight-flight instincts and keep them ready and reliable in case we need them in our lives.
But dreams are not always bad. For example, dreams about your attractive neighbor may also enable you to experience your reproductive instinct.
Theory – 6)
We dream to heal.
Stress neurotransmitters in the brain are less active even in the REM phase of sleep and in dreams with traumatic experiences. For this reason, some researchers think that one of the purposes of dreaming is to alleviate the pain of our bad experiences in order to achieve psychological healing.
Re-experiencing traumatic events in dreams with less mental pressure offers a clearer perspective and the ability to better comprehend events in psychologically healthy ways.
People with mood disorders and TSSR often have trouble sleeping. This is why some scientists believe that lack of sleep is a contributing factor to these diseases.
Theory – 7)
We dream to solve problems.
Thanks to dreams, which are not limited by reality and logic, our mind can produce endless scenarios to grasp problems and find solutions that we would not think of while awake. John Steinbeck called this the sleep committee, and the researcher proved the effect of dreaming in solving problems.
The famous chemist August Kekule discovered the structure of the benzene molecule just like that. That’s why sometimes the best solution to a problem is to sleep.
These were just a few of the most important theories. As technology improves our ability to understand the brain, we may one day find more precise causes. Until that time comes, we will continue to dream.
Who knows, maybe this will be one of your dream titles tonight in order to reinforce the information you repeat over and over in your brain.
