I recently read Orson Scott Card's Xenocide and I wish I could quote it here, but here are copyright issues and anyway, I'm too lazy to type out the long sections: dialogs between two extraterrestrial species on the human 'habit' (if that's the right word)of dreaming. Mr. Card's views are in line with many I have come across, and that I agree with, I suppose: dreams are by and large, please excuse the expression: brain farts. In Xenocide the Hive Queen character remarks that while humans on rare occasions get brilliant ideas from dreams, most dreaming is just useless nonsense. Most of you will know that our brains are more active in REM sleep than they are when we are awake, and that our heart rate is also faster, which makes one almost believe that our subconscious sleeping state is reality and consciousness is just a necessary evil to obtain nourishment, reproduce the species, alleviate bedsores (all that mundane stuff), but again, I think not. The Hive Queen is probably right in that the human brain while strange and wonderful is mostly engaged in senseless play during human sleep. How often have you woke to make note of the brilliant idea you had while asleep, only to realize after your first coffee that your brilliant idea is worthless? I do it all the time, but then I'm fairly worthless to begin with. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Dreams also play a role in memory. Things you learned or did throughout the day are replayed in dreams, though usually in a very surreal way. Some theorize that the brain is processing the days activities and looking for meaningful content, which it then replays for memory retention, kind of like when you need to remember something but you have no way of writing it down so you repeat it over and over in your head. The dreams you have early in the night are very different from the dreams you have later, that's because after a number of hours of sleep, your brain has sorted through all the important stuff. Try setting your alarm clock to go off after you've only been asleep for a few hours and notice how different those dreams are from the ones you have when you wake up naturally. Dreams also serve the purpose of keeping the mind active, on a base level, to keep you from slipping too far into unconsciousness. Also, contrary to popular belief, people DO NOT move around when they are dreaming, shifting and tossing and turning happen in non REM sleep. While slight muscle twitching and of course, rapid eye movement and perhaps a change in breathing patterns may occur, Full bodily movement does not occur in sleep. SO when your watching a movie or reading a book and it shows someone thrashing around during a nightmare, this is not possible. There are disorders that may cause people to thrash around in their sleep, and appear that they are having a nightmare, and when woken up may believe that they were having a nightmare, bu they weren't. Dreaming happens only in stage one and stage two sleep, which are the "lightest" levels of sleep. When your daydreaming, your brain wave patterns are more or less identical to stage one sleep, when you hook someone up to a brain wave monitor and watch for when they enter stage on sleep and then wake them up, most people will report that they were not yet asleep. So it's interesting to note that we are barely asleep when we are dreaming. Also, watching tv for a long period of time causes you to slip into stage one sleep like brain waves. There is as yet no evidence that dreams can predict the future, though they can and sometimes do play a role in memory retention, and insight into personal issues.
When I was young, I frequently had dreams that were anxious in nature, the 'falling' dream, the inability to escape approaching harm scenario etc. Then for a time, I would consciously 'daydream' as a prelude to drifting off to sleep. Awareness of what I am dreaming about has been elusive for several years now, and seems to align with when I started working graveyard shift. I was somewhat anxious about returning to the workforce after having been self-employed for many years and I had a couple of nights where I seemed to spend the whole night doing my new job in my dreams, waking up totally exhausted. That dream phase passed quickly. Only recently have I been starting to recall bits of my dreams once again, usually on a Sunday or Monday night, as those are the two nights that I do not normally need to be awake at a certain time. I tend to the theory that dreaming is a way by which the brain interfaces recent new experience with present memory, sifting and sorting and generating some very unique combinations in the process. As the logical data gets sorted along with the impressions and emotions that we associate with same, I wonder if dreams may be a spinoff of the bits that don't compute immediately, to be filtered several times before filing or discarding, although I wonder if we ever discard anything of our experience? I rather think we just file it away so far that it may seldom if ever be revisited unless it is required for other computation. :shrug:
The primary role of dreams is simulation. They put you in various scenarios to give you practice in dealing with them. This gives you a better chance of sucessfully handling similar situations when awake. Dreams also have a secondary role. If you are overly stressed they can be an outlet for relief.
What Skaught said pretty much covers it. When I was young and being abused I had "night terrors" every night - cyclic nightmares full of blood, violence and monsters. Much like my daily RW life.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I developed a means of waking myself from them and thus brought them under my control. Now, I recall outstanding dreams, but not most as they are rather mundane reflections of my daily life. Pleasant, but not memorable. If I wake during a dream I will recall it well for a while after awaking. If I wish to remember it I just need to recall it a few times during the day. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
