Why do we see dreams? What is a paradoxical dream? Dreams of men and women

People have been trying to understand the meaning of their dreams since history began to be recorded. And, probably, our ancestors did this even earlier, so it is not at all surprising that we continue to unravel our dreams in an attempt to at least understand something.

One of the most famous researchers in this field was Sigmund Freud, but today, thanks to modern technology, scientists can literally peer into the brain to see what happens to us while we sleep.

Why do we dream

In 2004, scientists were able to explain where in the brain, by studying a patient with Charcot-Von Willebrand syndrome - rare disease, which leads, among other things, to the loss of the ability to dream. Scientific American reports that researchers were able to find a person who does not have serious symptoms, but still lacks dreams.

During the experiments, it turned out that the girl had damage to the part of her brain associated with emotions and visual memories. This led scientists to suggest that this particular area of ​​the brain is associated with the generation or transmission of dreams.

Medical Daily cites a 2011 study in which a team of Italian scientists measured electrical brain waves and concluded that lower wave frequencies were the reason people were healthier. frontal lobes at the moment of awakening. This suggests that the mechanisms of dream memory and real events almost identical.

What dreams can tell about us

Dream books often try to interpret events or images that we see, but these descriptions are relative and unscientific. However, this is not to say that dreams mean absolutely nothing. Sleep is an indicator of what a person is thinking about. A DreamsCloud survey showed that people with higher degrees of dreaming are more likely to see situations related to work or study, and, in addition, they dream quite often, unlike less educated people.

“We dream about the things that bother us most,” Angel Morgan, MD, PhD, explains to The Huffington Post. In other words, the dreams of an educated person are more complex and always filled with events, since in his life, it is quite likely, more problems that need to be resolved.

Some studies suggest that people who lucid dream (that is, understand that it is a dream and can even control it) are more effective in solving everyday problems.

According to Live Science, dreams can also talk about our lives. Researchers from the Central Institute mental health(Central Institute of Mental Health) in Germany have proven that people who commit murder in their sleep are more often introverts in life, but rather aggressive. Business Insider reports that people prone to schizophrenia discuss their dreams using few words, while people prone to schizophrenia talk a lot and in a confusing manner.

Why are dreams needed?

Sigmund Freud argued that dreams are manifestations, and today a number of experts share the same opinion. Others suggest that dreams do not exist at all. This theory, also known as the activation and synthesis hypothesis, proposes that dreams are thought of as brain impulses that pull random thoughts and images out of our memories, and people construct a dream from them after waking up.

But most experts agree that dreams have a purpose, and that purpose has to do with emotions. “Dreams most likely help us process emotions by encoding them. What we see and experience in our dreams does not have to be real, but the emotions associated with these experiences certainly are, writes Sander van der Linden, a lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science (London). School of Economics and Political Science), in his column for Scientific American.

Simply put, dreams try to rid us of unpleasant or unnecessary emotions by tying them to experiences in the dream. Thus, the emotion itself becomes inactive and ceases to bother us.

Why do we dream?

Most Popular modern theories dreams offer several hypotheses: that dreams do not perform any functions - dreams are simply useless by-effect activation of neurons in the dreamer's brain, arising purely biological reasons(random activation theory); the idea that we solve problems in dreams (problem solving theory), or that dreams are a kind of psychotherapy: they try to help us cope with negative events in our lives (theory of mental health); and the idea that dreams are a model of the world and allow us to learn certain skills in a safe environment, especially in threatening situations in which it would be too dangerous to "practice" in real world(threat modeling theory).

The random activation theory needs to prove that dreams are completely random in content, but this does not seem to be so easy to do, because dreams

are organized sequences of conscious experience that mimic perceptions and actions in the real world. Sometimes dreams follow complex storyline, which develops like a good action or adventure film. Such a complex, organized scenario cannot be the result of simply random brain activation.

Problem solving theories need to prove that we do often find solutions in our dreams. complex problems, but it seems that this almost never happens. Very rarely do we “see” realistic solutions to complex problems in our dreams. Eat famous stories about scientists who saw new theoretical ideas in a dream, or about composers who heard new music in a dream. This seems to support problem solving theory. But even if these stories are true, cases of solution serious problems occur so rarely in sleep that it can hardly be considered a function of dreams.

Mental health theories need to prove that dreams actually help get rid of unpleasant memories and feelings, just like psychotherapy does. Of course, dreams can help us forget about problems and difficulties; if reality becomes too frightening or depressing, they can transport us to a pleasant and even beautiful world joy and happiness. Unfortunately, the psychotherapeutic function of dreams is greatly exaggerated. Instead of creating a feeling of comfort, dreams are much more likely to reproduce traumatic events and fears in nightmares and nightmares. This is confirmed by the results of studies of dreams and memory: during sleep, emotionally negative memories are selectively strengthened by the brain, rather than diminished! The hypothesis to explain this observation is that dreaming brings together memories, especially those memories that are most important to us and to our survival. Emotional memories are emotional precisely because they point to events that are truly important to us.

Threat simulation theory (Revonsuo, 2000) posits that dreams activate emotional memories and simulate threatening situations, thereby “training” us to respond to future threats. It is believed that the function of threat modeling was very important for our ancestors, because the habitat was full of threats to survival. Those who could effectively “model” reactions to threat found it easier to survive in the real world, and therefore dreams gradually, over the course of natural selection, acquired the function of a “simulator” of behavior in threatening situations.

A. Revonsuo. "Psychology of Consciousness"

Evidence from dream research shows that dreams are often associated with threatening events (being chased, escaped, attacked, failed to complete a dangerous or important task, repeated attempts to do so, accidents; we dream of being trapped or lost, falling or losing something). something valuable) and danger threatens the “dream self” or our loved ones (Valli & Revonsuo, 2009). In addition, if a person lives in a threatening environment or experiences emotional stress, he has terrible dreams and nightmares more often. However, there is still no direct evidence that threatening dreams actually help people cope better. similar situations V real life.

Lucid14 dreams

Reflective consciousness involves the ability to focus on some specific aspect of the content of consciousness and think about it, evaluate it, or make a decision about it (see Chapter 3). In dreams, our ability to think critically about the events we observe is reduced, but does not disappear completely. Often

V in a dream we think about at least a little about the strange events that we see in our dreams. However, we quickly forget about them, even if these events would completely amaze us in reality, where, of course, we would not forget about them and would not take them for granted.

IN in a dream we are not aware that its events would be impossible or improbable

V real life, and we act and think in this situation (and not about this situation) in exactly the same way as in ordinary life. We simply accept the situation as a fact and in our reflective mind we try to guess what needs to be done when in my house A gorilla is already wandering around, although this house is not like the house I live in in real life, and besides the gorilla, my deceased grandfather is in it. We do not question the authenticity of the scene itself.

It's difficult, but sometimes we manage to doubt the authenticity of the events occurring in a dream, and even understand that they cannot really happen! The defining feature of lucid dreams is the cognitive understanding or reflective awareness of the fact that “this is a dream.” When this understanding arises, the dream changes from normal to lucid, and the lucidity lasts as long as the dreamer is aware of the fact that he is dreaming. This awareness is like waking up in a dream. It allows me to understand that the world around me now is unreal or hallucinatory, and the objects or people I see around me do not actually exist, they are just images of my dreaming mind.

When such understanding arises, the dreamer may consciously pay attention to features of the dream world, follow a deliberate plan, act intentionally in a dream, or recall real-life facts stored in his dream. long term memory. Lucid dream researchers, for example, are experimenting with flying in their sleep, learning to walk through walls, and even talking to people in their dreams, asking them tricky questions to find out how smart they are!

One of the first researchers of lucid dreams was Frederick van Eeden. He dreamed and at the same time was aware of his state and tried to carry out various experiments in his sleep, just out of curiosity, to see what would happen. Some of his experiments are excellent demonstrations of how the phenomenal image of our body differs from the real physical body:

14 Lucid (Latin lux – light). In a broad sense, that which is in the light of consciousness; not filled with pathological content (psychiatrist) - Note. scientific ed.

A. Revonsuo. "Psychology of Consciousness"

V garden in front of the windows of my office and through the glass I see the eyes of my dog. I lie on my chest and see the dog very clearly. But at the same time, I know for sure that I am sleeping and lying on my back in my bed. Then I decided to slowly and carefully wake up and watch how the sensations I experienced while lying on my chest would change to the sensations that occurred when I lay on my back. I did it, slowly and deliberately, and the transition - which I have experienced many times since - is absolutely beautiful. It is similar to the feeling that I am slipping out of one body into another, and this is accompanied by a distinct sensation of these two bodies...

Since then, this observation of a double body has occurred to me many times. It is so convincing that it almost inevitably leads to the concept of the dream body... In a lucid dream the sense of having a body—having eyes, hands, a mouth that speaks, and so on—is quite distinct; but at the same time I know what's mine physical body sleeps and is completely

V different position. At the moment of awakening, these two sensations seem to be mixed with each other (van Eeden, 1913/1990, pp. 181 – 182).

The ability to take deliberate and even pre-planned actions in a lucid dream has become the key to innovative laboratory research, held in the 80s. These studies showed that lucid dreams occur in a phase of continuous " REM sleep" Subjects trained in lucid dreaming techniques may produce pre-planned eye movement signals during lucid dreaming. Eye movement recordings show that objective evidence of lucidity in eye movement recordings occurs simultaneously with the EEG recording an uninterrupted period of REM sleep. During lucid dreams There are no sleep disturbances or brief awakenings. Before objective measurements provided conclusive evidence, most sleep researchers believed that lucid dreams occurred in short moments awakenings and therefore cannot be considered dreams at all.

It is possible that many people experience brief episodes of lucidity in their dreams, but in general, lucid dreams occur very rarely, if at all. In dream examples, awareness occurs, on average, in only a few reports out of a hundred. Only about 20% of reports indicate that their authors experience lucid dreams at least once a month. However, lucid dreaming is a skill that can be mastered, and with training, the likelihood of such dreams can be greatly increased. For example, one teaching method is to constantly ask the question, “Am I dreaming?” while awake and remind yourself before going to bed that “tonight I will have a dream and understand that it is a dream.” In general, by writing down our dreams and paying attention to what happens in our dreams, we can increase the likelihood of lucid dreaming - it helps us notice things in our dreams that we know can only happen in our dreams, but not in real life.

Scary and nightmare dreams

Typically, lucid dreams are a pleasant and surprising experience. Unfortunately, there are also extremely unpleasant dreams. Scary dreams are disturbing dreams that don't make us wake up, and the nightmares are long, vivid dreams with extremely frightening content suggesting a threat to life and safety

A. Revonsuo. "Psychology of Consciousness"

or the dreamer's self-esteem, so unpleasant that we wake up from it. When a person wakes up from a nightmare, he quickly realizes that he has woken up, remembers the dream that woke him up, but continues to experience the emotions associated with the dream. After this he finds it difficult to sleep, at least not immediately.

Nightmares and scary dreams are a type of dream characterized by a strong negative emotional charge. On average, people report having scary dreams or nightmares a couple of times a month, but some people have them almost every night. If nightmares occur frequently and are very disturbing to a person, disrupt normal sleep patterns and regularly lead to insomnia, this condition is diagnosed as clinical disorder sleep.

Why do we have scary dreams and nightmares and why are they so common? In dreams, negative emotions and events in general occur much more often than positive ones. Lucid dreams are a very pleasant type of dream, but they are very rare compared to the most unpleasant forms of dreams. According to threat modeling theories, the dreaming brain simulates threatening events to help us “train” our survival skills and prepare us to face unpleasant situations in real life. This function is believed to have evolved through natural selection and is also present in other mammals. This is why many of the most terrible nightmares depict rather primitive threats - pursuit and aggressive attack of monsters, wild animals, evil people or a collision with powerful by natural forces– storms, floods or storms.

Nightmares

Negative emotional charge is also found in some other sleep states. In nightmares, the sleeping person suddenly screams loudly, jumps up, and appears frightened, but is unaware of reality and may have difficulty calming down or communicating. Nightmares are an ASC, in which some features of deep slow-wave sleep are combined with insomnia. Nightmare not a real dream, but it may be accompanied by hypnopompic hallucinations, frightening images of malicious creatures or strangers in the bedroom, dangerous animals or monsters in our bed, such as spiders or snakes, illusions that the house is broken into by burglars or intruders. Familiar people and objects may seem dangerous enemies, and the person wants to run or defend himself.

This episode resolves when the subject returns to sleep or is fully awake. In any case, he may have only fragmentary memories of what happened to him at night. Night panic most often occurs in children, but can also occur in adults. If the sleeping person is prone to dangerous escapes from home or begins to beat and kick the spouse sleeping next to him, night panic attacks may require help from a sleep disorder specialist. For example, one patient hit the closed window on the second floor, flew outside and landed on the ground in front of his house! Fortunately, this disorder is well treated with medication and is easy to cure.

Sleepwalking

Sleepwalking and sleepwalking are associated with complex behavior and movement in an altered state of consciousness, where the person is somewhat aware of or registers their surroundings (with their eyes usually open) but does not realize that they are dreaming. Typical sleepwalking is a simple, repetitive behavior: a person opens and closes doors or windows, gets dressed or undressed, and walks around the house as if checking that everything is in order.

Sleep: REM sleep and phase slow sleep. It all starts with slow-wave sleep, which includes 4 stages.

At the first stage, falling asleep occurs. Remember this feeling when you seem to be on the verge of falling asleep, in a kind of half-asleep, which can be interrupted by a sharp start. At this time, muscle tone decreases.

The second stage is characterized by shallow sleep and takes up most of the total time allocated for sleep. The heart rate slows down and body temperature drops. In addition, there is a further decrease in muscle activity.

The third and fourth stages - time deep sleep. It is during this period that the body receives the necessary portion physical sleep. There is a flow of blood to the muscles, increased production growth hormone, etc.

After the completion of the slow-wave sleep phase, rapid sleep occurs. During such sleep, rapid eye movements under the eyelids are observed, increased blood pressure, increased blood flow to the brain, as well as irregular frequency heart rate and uneven breathing. It is at this stage that a person dreams.

The functionality of the REM sleep phase is still not fully understood. American scientists believe that it is necessary in order to organize information stored in memory. Based on experiments, it was proven that nerve impulses, received by a person while awake, are reproduced by the brain seven times faster during sleep. Such reproduction of impressions received during the day is necessary for the formation of memories. That is, all information is, as it were, rewritten from short-term memory to long-term storage media.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the scientific world began to talk about the fact that during waking hours in the human body they manage to accumulate chemical compounds such as: carbon dioxide, lactic acid and cholesterol. During sleep, these substances dissipate, affecting the brain in such a way that it generates projections.

According to another theory, dreams are a way to reboot the brain. In other words, dreams help the brain get rid of information and work properly. IN otherwise, the brain would quickly fail.

Another possible explanation occurrence of dreams - disordered electrical activity. About every 90 minutes, the brainstem activates and begins sending uncontrollable electrical impulses. Meanwhile, they are intercepted by the analytical forebrain, which tries to make sense of the unclear signals. This analysis manifests itself in the form of dreams.

It’s unlikely that anyone would argue that sleep is directly related to emotions, fears, and desires, both manifest and hidden. At the same time, dreams can also be influenced by any factors affecting the human organs of perception. Depending on these factors, the plot of the dream constantly changes. Anyone who goes to bed on an empty stomach will most likely see food in their dreams. If a sleeping person is chilled, he will look for warmth and comfort. And a person who rests his hand while sleeping will obviously dream that there is a wound, a cut, or something worse on his hand.

We've all heard stories about how dreams inspired people to create something new or helped them find a needed solution. Paul McCartney heard the hit Yesterday in a dream, and Dmitry Mendeleev saw the periodic table of chemical elements.

Many people think that their dreams have a special meaning, but science is more skeptical. Some scientists consider dreams to be a meaningless consequence of sleep, a by-product of evolution from which there is no benefit.

Another thing is sleep as such. Scientists know that reducing sleep duration leads to dangerous diseases such as heart disease or stroke.

A growing body of research shows that lack of sleep increases the risk of obesity and Alzheimer's disease.

Extensive population studies reflect the sad truth: the less sleep you get, the shorter your life.

Dreaming during REM sleep treats pain from difficult, traumatic emotional episodes

Sleep also helps us retain memories, remember information faster, and learn new skills. Healthy sleep important for every person and especially for children, students, athletes, pilots and doctors.

But what about dreams? Do they have a purpose? Recent research from my neuroscience laboratory, as well as the work of others, shows that dreams do special function, important for our well-being. There are two main areas in which dreams help us.

Dreams relieve emotional pain

They say that time heals wounds. But my research shows that time heals when you sleep and dream. Dreaming during REM sleep treats the pain of difficult, traumatic emotional episodes experienced during the day and offers emotional resolution when you wake up the next morning.

REM sleep is the only period of time when the brain is completely free of norepinephrine molecules, which provoke anxiety.

Moreover, while we dream, areas of the brain associated with emotions and memory are restored.

Retrieval of emotional memory occurs when the brain is free of neurotransmitter, stress-inducing. This allows us to re-process sad memories in a calmer, safer environment.

Dreams help people reduce emotional reactivity

We came to these conclusions through several studies. One study conducted at the Center for Human Sleep Science involved healthy young adults who were divided into two groups.

All participants in the experiment were placed in turn in a magnetic resonance imaging scanner and shown a set of images that evoked different emotions. 12 hours later, participants were shown the same images again.

For participants in the first group, the images were shown again on the same day. For the participants in the second group, the break occurred at night, and they managed to sleep.

People who slept between the two sessions showed a significant decrease in emotional response to the images. MRI results showed a significant decrease in response in the amygdala, the emotional center of the brain where painful feelings are formed.

Moreover, after sleep, there was a re-engagement of the rational area of ​​the brain - the prefrontal cortex. This helped reduce emotional reactivity.

Participants in the other group, who did not sleep between sessions, showed no decrease in emotional response during the repeated experiment. We also recorded each participant's sleep on the night between the two experimental sessions. We found specific activity in the brain that reflected a decline in chemical processes associated with stress during dreams. It was she who determined the success of nightly “psychotherapy”.

One of the main functions of dreams is to ease our emotional experiences so that we can move on with our lives.

Dreaming may help people reduce emotional reactivity because the emotional content of dreams is associated with a decrease in norepinephrine in the brain.

This theory is supported by research conducted by Murray Raskind. He studied the problem post-traumatic disorder at former members military operations, which were often tormented by nightmares.

As part of the experiment, participants in the first group of subjects were given prazosin, a drug that reduces blood pressure and blocks the production of norepinephrine. They had fewer nightmares and demonstrated fewer symptoms post-traumatic disorder than participants in the second group who were given a placebo.

Thus, one of the main functions of dreams is to ease our emotional experiences so that we can learn lessons and move on with our lives.

Dreams stimulate creativity

Research shows that during deep sleep, memories are transferred to long-term memory.

But it is during REM sleep that these memories are mixed and combined in unique new ways. When we dream, the brain analyzes large amounts of acquired knowledge and then outputs general rules and patterns. This helps us find solutions to problems that previously seemed intractable.

In one of the studies, we were convinced that it is dreams that are important, and not sleep itself.

Before going to bed, we gave the experiment participants several tasks: to form words from a set of letters arranged in a chaotic order. Then they fell asleep, and we watched their sleep and woke them up different phases sleep to repeat the task. We woke up some participants during the dreaming phase, others during the deep sleep phase.

Participants who were awakened during deep sleep showed no creativity. They solved few problems.

Dreams improve Creative skills in the field of problem solving

Participants awakened during the dream phase solved 15-35% more problems than before sleep. In addition, they noted that the solution simply “popped” into their minds without much effort.

In another study, my colleagues and I presented participants with a series of logical chains, for example: A>B, B>C, C>D, and so on. We then asked them questions to check their understanding. For example, is it true that B>D? After completing the task, we allowed the participants to take a break for nap lasting from 60 to 90 minutes, which included REM sleep.

After sleep, they showed a significant increase in performance, as if they were connecting disparate puzzle pieces in their sleep.

This way of processing information is a key feature that distinguishes the way our brain works from a computer. It also highlights the difference between knowledge, which is the retention of individual facts, and wisdom, which involves understanding what they mean together. Wisdom is a product of the dreaming phase.

Another study found that dreaming improves creative problem-solving abilities.

People who think they can get little sleep without negative consequences, are sorely mistaken

Participants learned to navigate the virtual maze through trial and error and by placing unique objects, such as Christmas trees, in specific locations. After study session participants were divided into two groups.

The first group slept for 90 minutes, while the other watched videos the entire time. Sleeping participants were awakened from time to time and asked about the contents of their dreams. Participants who watched the video were also periodically asked what they were thinking about. After this, the participants again tried to find a way out of the maze.

As expected, the participants who slept performed significantly better on the task than those who watched the video. But that is not all. Those who dreamed about the maze performed 10 times better than participants who simply slept.

When we examined the content of the dreams, it became clear that the participants were not exactly reproducing their learning experiences in their dreams. Instead, they selected the most memorable moments and tried to connect them with their existing knowledge. This is how dreams help us develop creativity.

The benefits of dreaming are obvious, but many of us struggle to sleep eight hours a day and experience them for ourselves. Some people think they don't need that much sleep. But research proves the opposite. People who think they can get little sleep without negative consequences are sadly mistaken.

Five ways to normalize your sleep

If you have trouble sleeping, you may be tempted to take sleeping pills. However, pills have a detrimental effect on the dreaming process, so it is better to use other methods:

1. An hour or two before going to bed, dim the lights. in the room and remove the sources bright light, such as computer monitors and gadget screens. You can start dimming the lights in your home even earlier to induce a feeling of sleepiness.

2. Go to bed and get up at approximately the same time. This is how the body gets used to going to bed regularly. There's no point in sleeping in on the weekend. You still won't be able to make up for the lack of sleep accumulated during the work week.

3. Sleep in a cool room The ideal temperature is about 18 degrees. During sleep, body temperature drops, so more low temperature indoors signals your brain that it's time to sleep.

4. If you cannot sleep for a long time or wake up in the middle of the night, do not stay awake in bed. This signals to the brain that the bed is not a place to sleep. Better get up, go into another room and read a book with dim lights. Do not turn on the computer or take out gadgets. When you feel drowsy, go back to bed. If you don't want to get out of bed, try meditating. Research shows that meditation helps you fall asleep faster and improves the quality of your sleep.

5. Avoid drinking caffeinated or alcoholic drinks in the evening. Both disrupt sleep, preventing you from falling asleep or causing you to wake up frequently in the middle of the night.

Sleep is the most effective method recovery for the brain and maintenance physical health, it cannot be replaced by anything else.

Dreams provide us with the necessary emotional help and work wonders with information processing. If we want to be as healthy, happy, and creative as possible, we need to keep these facts in mind.

about the author

Professor of psychology and neurobiology at the University of California at Berkeley, director of the Center for the Science of Human Sleep, author of the book “Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams” (Scribner, 2017).