All about dreams. Why do people dream

Sleep is an unusual state of the body, which is sometimes compared to death. In fact, they have little in common. In contrast to the complete death of the body, rest, on the contrary, promotes long life. It renews all systems, helps restore physical and moral strength.

At the same time, sleep is not something homogeneous in structure. There are different phases, each of which performs a specific function and lasts a very specific amount of time. Everyone knows that deep sleep is beneficial. But when it occurs, how it affects the body - only a few know about it.

Sleep functions

While awake, people and animals spend a lot of energy. Sleep is one of the body’s self-regulation mechanisms that helps restore this energy. Its main functions are:

relaxation of the nervous system;
restoration of physical strength;
“rebooting” the brain (at night the information received during the day is processed, systematized and stored);
cleansing the body of toxic substances (it’s not for nothing that doctors recommend that sick people sleep more);
restoration of immunity;
cell renewal;
an opportunity to wait out the period of darkness with benefit for the body.

Prolonged deep sleep helps improve memory, burn excess fat, and overcome stress and illness.

What is the functional difference between deep and REM sleep?

During different phases, the brain processes information differently. REM and NREM sleep help you remember events that have happened and plan your future, but each in their own way.

The slow-wave sleep phase “switches on” memory resources. When a person falls into deep sleep (aka slow sleep), all the information received during the day begins to be systematized and “sorted out.” This phase improves memorization and logical thinking.

The REM sleep phase is a real “workshop” of the future. With its help, the brain models possible scenarios for the development of expected events. It’s not for nothing that they say that you had a “prophetic” dream. In itself, of course, it is not prophetic. It’s just that during the period of REM sleep, a person developed models of the future, one of which he realized when he woke up. All this happens on a subconscious or intuitive level. However, human rest is not limited to these two phases. It has a more complex structure.

Phases and stages

There are 4 main stages of sleep:

Falling asleep.
Slow sleep.
Fast.
Awakening.

Each phase is characterized by a certain duration and accompanying physiological processes.

Falling asleep

1st phase - falling asleep. While a person falls asleep, the sensitivity of his sensory systems and heart rate decrease, and his consciousness gradually “turns off.” Even the glands begin to work less actively. This can be noticed by burning eyes and dry mouth. The approaching phase of falling asleep can be easily determined by obsessive yawning.

Night owls who stay up late reading or watching TV often notice such sensations. If all the described signs are present, it’s time to give the body a rest. The falling asleep phase is the shortest. It usually lasts about 10 minutes. Then slow-wave sleep begins, which in turn is divided into several stages.

What is slow wave sleep

Slow rest is a rest in which brain activity remains in the low amplitude range. Scientists record this using an EEG (electroencephalogram).

All phases of human sleep take different durations. If it takes 10 minutes to fall asleep, then the slow-wave sleep phase requires from 80 minutes to 1.5 hours. The duration depends on the individual characteristics of a person’s physiology, as well as on his rest regime. Unlike REM sleep, the NREM sleep phase is divided into several stages.

Stages

Slow wave (aka slow wave) sleep has the most complex structure. It is divided into the following 3 phases (or cycles):

Light sleep phase

It occurs immediately after falling asleep and lasts about half the time of slow sleep. At this stage, the person’s muscles completely relax, breathing becomes calm and deep. Body temperature drops slightly and heart rate slows down. The brain completely goes into rest mode.

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How does deep sleep affect a person’s well-being and how long should this stage last?

The EEG records sleep spindles at this time. This is what scientists called theta waves, which form the sigma rhythm (12-14-20 Hz). Such brain activity indicates a complete shutdown of consciousness.

At this time, the person’s eyes do not move. He is completely relaxed, but not very deeply asleep yet. It is easy to wake a person during light sleep. Loud sounds or physical impact can return him to a state of wakefulness.

NREM sleep phase

During this time, brain activity is expressed in the production of delta waves, the frequency of which is 2 Hz. This is the calmest and slowest mode.

It takes about half an hour. During this phase of slow-wave sleep, a person sometimes experiences dreams.

Deep sleep phase

At this time, a person sleeps deeply and soundly. The EEG is dominated by delta wave oscillations with a frequency of 2 Hz. NREM and deep sleep are often combined under the umbrella term delta wave sleep. The duration of the deep sleep phase takes up approximately 15% of the entire night's rest.

The duration and features of the deep rest phase have been closely studied by specialists for a long time. It was found that at this time the brain actively produces dreams (about 80% of all visions that a person has during the night). Dreams appear in the form of pleasant images or nightmares. Most of them a person forgets when he wakes up.

Even though the deep sleep stage does not take very long, it has a profound effect on the body. For example, in young children suffering from enuresis, involuntary urination may occur at this time. In persons prone to sleepwalking, it is at this stage that attacks of this disease can occur.

REM sleep stage

This phase was discovered not so long ago (in 1953) and is still being comprehensively studied. It was found that the state of quick rest follows immediately after the deep one and lasts about 10-15 minutes.

REM sleep is the time when brain activity is expressed in the production of waves close in frequency to beta waves. Fluctuations in brain activity during this period are very intense and fast. Hence the name - “fast”. Also, this period in the scientific literature is called the REM phase, or REM sleep.

A person in this stage is completely motionless. His muscle tone drops sharply, but his brain activity is close to a state of wakefulness. Eyeballs move under closed eyelids.

The connection between vivid, memorable dreams and this phase is the clearest. While staying in it, a person sees the most colorful images and scenes. If awakening is initiated during REM sleep, in 90% of cases the person will be able to retell his visions.

Scientists cannot give a clear answer to the question of how long this sleep phase lasts. Its duration is approximately equal to 20-25% of the total time of night rest. The phase of REM, like slow-wave sleep, has a cyclical structure. The cycles are similar in the nature of brain activity, but differ in duration.

The first cycle occurs approximately 1.5 hours after falling asleep. The time of the next one increases a little and so on. In the morning, the duration of the last phase of REM sleep can reach several tens of minutes. In this case, the person sleeps shallowly until he finally wakes up completely.

As morning approaches, all systems in the body become active. The hormonal system begins to work more actively. Men have an erection of the penis, women have an erection of the clitoris. Respiration and heart rate changes. Alternate rises and falls in blood pressure alternate.

What is sleep and why is it needed? This issue still causes controversy and numerous studies among scientists. For several centuries in a row, no one has been able to explain the essence of these phenomena. But a person sleeps for about 25 years of his life. Insomnia entails a lot of unpleasant consequences, including mental disorders and serious internal diseases.

The word "sleep" comes from the Latin somnus. It denotes the physiological state of a living organism in which reactions to the outside world or external stimuli are reduced. To put it in simple terms, sleep is, restoration of strength and.
Several centuries ago it was believed that during sleep the soul leaves the body and travels around the world. It was just not known which one. What the soul saw on its way was called a dream.

With the development of technology, it became clear that no soul goes anywhere during sleep. However, scientists have not figured out for certain what sleep is. And this despite the fact that somnology (the science of sleep) is developing quite quickly.

It was possible to establish only 3 indisputable facts:

During sleep, a person is relaxed, almost completely motionless.
The sleeper's consciousness turns off. But not completely, since many people react to smells. In addition, almost everyone hears the alarm ringing.
During sleep, the brain continues to work. A number of processes occur in it that are not present during wakefulness, coma, or fainting. This is one of the reasons why dreams occur.

Scientists have also divided sleep into cycles and phases.

What is a prophetic dream that is so often talked about? This is a dream that is completely or partially repeated in life. According to scientists, it is associated with increased sensitivity of the brain. Usually closer to the morning he begins to work more intensely. Because of this, it detects the slightest changes, even those that a person does not feel while awake. These changes may not wake you up. However, he will definitely see them. This is one of the theories for the appearance of prophetic dreams.

There are 5 reasons:

To rest and restore the strength spent during the day. Without rest, the body and brain will quickly wear out.
Analyze and sort out the information received. The brain will retain what is needed and remove what is unnecessary.
To “kill” time at night. Imagine our ancestors. If they did not sleep, but wandered outside their homes out of boredom, they could become prey to large predators.
To restore the body's defenses.
To remove harmful waste products from the brain.

“Usually people see in their dreams what they think about during the day.” - Herodotus.

The answer to the question of why you need to sleep is provided by interesting experiments. The first was unplanned, but rather accidental. A medical journal published in 1859 spoke about him. A Chinese man killed his wife. A French court sentenced him to death by sleep deprivation. The killer was watched by 3 guards. Their job was to keep him awake. After 10 days, the prisoner was ready for any other execution, as he experienced inhuman suffering.

In our time, such studies were carried out purposefully. The subjects deliberately did not allow themselves to fall asleep. After 5 days they encountered the following problems:

hearing and vision have deteriorated;
coordination of movements is impaired;
it became difficult;
Several people experienced hallucinations.

Also, people without sleep lost weight. And this despite a balanced diet.
The listed experiments once again prove the importance of sleep for the human body.

One sleep cycle lasts up to 2 hours. It consists of a slow and a fast phase or stage.

Fast phase

Otherwise called fast wave or paradoxical. At this time, work is carried out with the subconscious. The brain of a sleeping person processes the information received during the day. This is why we dream. This helps you get used to changing circumstances.

“Dreaming is the royal road to the unconscious.” - Sigmund Freud.

With each sleep cycle, the paradoxical phase lasts longer. It can be determined by the following characteristics:

decreased muscle tone;
rapid movements of the eyeballs under the eyelids;
arrhythmia (breathing, pulse).

Interestingly, it is at this stage that a person sees the most impressive dreams.

NREM sleep

Otherwise called orthodox. During it, the processes occurring in the body are normalized, strength and energy are restored.

Conventionally, this stage is divided into 4 parts:

Nap. Transitional phase between wakefulness and sleep. A person perceives reality poorly and sees the first dreams.
Superficial. Consciousness turns off. But at the same time, hearing is activated. A sleeping person can easily be awakened by loud noises.
The third stage is characterized by an increase in the depth of dreams.
Delta sleep. Decreased sensory activity. During this phase, it is very difficult to wake a person.

The Orthodox stage lasts about an hour and a half. Afterwards, paradoxical or REM sleep begins again.

Cyclicality

One sleep cycle looks something like this:

A person goes to bed, turns off the light, muffles the sounds. Nap begins - the first part of the slow phase.
Stages 2 and 3 begin.
If no one disturbs the peace during stages 2, 3, the brain will plunge into delta sleep.
The Orthodox stage goes in the opposite direction to stage 1.
REM sleep sets in.

And so on in a circle. The average frequency is 4-6 times per night.

How much sleep do you need at each age?

According to studies, the need for sleep decreases with age. If newborns sleep 2/3 of the day, then older people need 7-8 hours.
The generally accepted norms look like this:

These are conditional or average indicators. Get as much sleep as you need to make the most of your remaining time.

How to fall asleep quickly and sleep soundly

Why a person needs sleep is understandable. But sometimes it happens that you can’t sleep. The culprit is nervous overstrain, working night shifts, drinking tonic drinks, eating fatty, heavy foods, changing time zones, changes associated with hormonal levels or age. What to do in such cases?

You need to get ready for bed. You can do this in several ways:

To start, stop using gadgets about an hour before you go to bed. You can even set a reminder on your mobile phone to put it away at a designated time.
Eat something light before bed so you don't feel hungry. This could be a small banana, yogurt and other fermented milk products, whole grain crackers. It is not recommended to eat fatty and spicy foods.
In the evening, prepare everything you will need in the morning. Lay out your clothes and put your lunch in containers.
Take a warm shower. It will help you relax. Dim the lights, remove loud sounds. Help in this way.
It is difficult to sleep in a stuffy room. Open the window. Let the room be cool, otherwise you will never be able to sleep soundly, you will toss and turn all night.
Make your vacation as comfortable as possible. Think about what irritates you. Maybe it's the loud ticking of a clock or the noise of cars outside the window. Find ways to get rid of these irritants.
Avoid drinking strong coffee and tea before bed. They do not calm, but rather invigorate. The same goes for some fruits and berries: apricots, grapes, rowan, pomegranates. If you are thirsty, drink some water or a cup of warm herbal tea, such as mint.
Try to free your brain from bad thoughts. To do this, read an interesting book. Don’t think about bad things, don’t try to solve work issues overnight, don’t think about grievances and other negative aspects.
Make sure you have a comfortable bed and bedding. Buy a good pillow and, most importantly, a mattress. They will help the body relax faster.

There are 2 more tips, following which will help you tune into a positive mood, calm down and sleep soundly:

Take a relaxing bath. Add foam, salt or aromatic oils to it. Lavender, sage, marjoram and geranium have a hypnotic effect.
Take a few minutes to do yoga. Or just sit comfortably in a chair, concentrate on breathing, think about the good.

If you can't sleep, consult a doctor for help. Often long-term insomnia is a symptom of serious illnesses.

Interesting facts about sleep and dreams

There are many myths and legends associated with sleep. But there are also scientifically proven facts. Here are some of them.

“Dreams are a grand series of the subconscious.” — Wanda Blonska.

Dreams come to everyone at night

Almost everyone on the planet sees dreams. But we forget 90% of what we saw within 30 minutes after waking up.
Scientists have now developed special techniques for lucid dreaming. They allow you not only to remember a dream, but also to manage it.

Great discoveries often come during dreams.

And there are many such examples. For example, the well-known Dmitry Mendeleev saw a table of chemical elements in a dream. And Paul McCartney came to his masterpiece song Yesterday in a dream. Another example is Niels Bohr, who saw the structure of an atom in a dream.

Edison, Da Vinci, Tesla, Churchill - these people slept only 3-4 hours a day. And they felt great. Although scientists believe that this is a violation. In their opinion, lack of sleep is the other side of talent or genius.

There is a unique case where a person lived without sleep for 40 years. Austro-Hungarian army soldier Paul Kern was wounded in the head, resulting in severe damage to the frontal lobe of the brain. The man stopped feeling pain and sleeping. Not a single doctor was able to find the cause of this condition and at least somehow change the situation. As a result, Paul Kern died without sleeping once in 4 decades.

Conclusion

Why are we sleeping? To restore the strength spent during the day. It is important to allocate enough time for sleep at night. Free your thoughts from negativity and work issues, think about the good, drink herbal tea or take a relaxing bath. All this will help you sleep soundly until the morning. And after waking up, you will feel an unprecedented surge of energy.

Today, on World Sleep Day, conferences and other events are being held in different countries dedicated to this most important part of human life. And we offer for reading a selection of facts about sleep that we found most interesting.

Night terrors are sleep disorders associated with abnormal physical movements, behavior, emotions, perceptions and dreams. It is easy to confuse it with a nightmare, but the only similarity is that both occur during sleep.

With night terrors, people are not aware of what is happening to them. The main difference between a night terror and a nightmare is that in the first case the person partially wakes up, and in the second he continues to sleep. In addition, they occur in different stages of sleep. Most often, fears occur between midnight and two o'clock in the morning, as well as during daytime sleep.

During a night terror attack, a person suddenly sits up and starts screaming, often something quite meaningful like, “They're going to kill me!” The sleeper's face may be distorted with rage, or the person may seem to be protecting himself from an invisible threat, or he may be afraid of something like worms in the bed. The heartbeat is rapid, sweat appears on the body, the pupils are dilated. This condition can last from ten to twenty minutes, and if the condition is chronic, then attacks can occur up to 16 times per night.

A distinctive feature of night terror is that it is impossible to influence a person. In fact, it is even dangerous to interfere - a person is uncontrollable. Most people in the morning remember absolutely nothing about the night's incident. The only good thing is that they then fall asleep easily - unlike a nightmare.

Most often, boys from five to seven years old suffer from night terrors, but girls are also susceptible to this, although less often - according to statistics, about 17% of young children experience night terrors. As a rule, as you get older, night terrors occur less frequently and then disappear altogether.

But besides age, there are other factors - the cause of night terror can be emotional tension, stress, fatigue or conflict. The cause may also be related to post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, or sleepwalking.

Psychotherapy helps with night fears - the point is that life stresses should be reduced to a minimum.

New research suggests there may be a sleep placebo effect: Simply believing you got a good night's sleep is enough to keep you productive and energized throughout the day. This technique will work especially well if people are told that they slept well by some authoritative psychologist or doctor.

The experiment was carried out on a group of senior students. The students were given a brief lecture about the nature of sleep and then hooked up to equipment that would supposedly give researchers information about the quality of their sleep the previous night (in reality, the equipment simply measured brain frequencies). Then one of the experimenters allegedly calculated a coefficient of how well the students slept. Those who were told they slept well performed better and faster on the tests than those who were told they slept poorly.

Of course, if students stop sleeping altogether, this technique will not work. The effect is rather similar to another effect already familiar to us: if a person is told that he will cope with a task, then he will probably actually cope with it, and if he is set up in advance to fail, then the likelihood of failure will increase.

Sleep is a purely individual thing, so the time of sleep during which a person gets enough sleep also depends on the person. There are two factors that influence sleep time: according to research by scientists from the Department of Medicine at Harvard School, these are age and genetics.

Genetics influences not only how much sleep you need, but also your sleep patterns and wake-up times, as well as your preferences for performing certain tasks at different times of the day. Most adults need about eight hours of sleep per night, and a very small percentage of people (about 3%) can be productive during the day with just six hours of sleep - which is due to their genetics.

Typically, the older you get, the less sleep you need. Here is a short list of how many hours people of different ages need to sleep on average:

newborns (from one to two months) - from 10.5 to 18 hours;
infants (from three to 11 months) - from 10 to 14 hours;
small children (from one to three years old) - from 12 to 14 hours;
preschool children (from three to five years old) - from 12 to 14 hours;
children (from five to 12 years old) - from 10 to 11 hours;
teenagers (from 12 to 18 years old) - from 8.5 to 9.5 hours;
adults (from 18 years to the end of life) - from 7.5 to 8.5 hours.

Research has confirmed that those who sleep too much or too little have an increased risk of mortality compared to those who sleep enough.

Paul Kern was a Hungarian soldier who fought in the First World War. He was an excellent soldier and fought even when all the other soldiers from his company were killed, for which he was awarded a medal. Despite his fighting skills, he also received a gunshot wound that should have killed him, but Paul survived.

Paul was shot in the temple and part of his brain was damaged. The bullet destroyed part of the frontal lobe - such a wound would kill anyone. But the only thing that changed in Paul’s life after being wounded was that he could no longer sleep. At all.

The doctors examined him carefully and could not understand how he managed to survive. In fact, the inability to sleep became the soldier’s only problem. Sleeping pills and sedative pills did not help. This may sound terrible, but Paul did not suffer - part of his nervous system was also destroyed. The man did not perceive exhaustion and assured everyone that he felt great. Kern did not sleep for 40 years - until his death in 1955.

According to research, the content of our dreams is reflected in our real relationships with other people while awake - for example, causing arguments and doubts the very next day. Thus, dreams can predict the future behavior of a couple, especially in intimate relationships.

Researchers asked more than 60 men and women to write down detailed information about their dreams as soon as they woke up, as well as keep a personal diary and pay special attention to notes related to relationships with their significant other.

If people saw a partner in a dream at night, then the next day this led to problems in the relationship, and after dreams in which there was a conflict with the partner, serious difficulties in the relationship followed. If the dreamer cheated on his other half in a dream, this led to a decrease in love and trust, and the effect lasted for several days.

However, not all the results were negative: those who saw something pleasant about their partner in a dream spent more time with him and became closer to him in real life.

True, the researchers are not entirely clear whether the subjects acted unconsciously under the influence of dreams, or whether their actions were dictated by the analysis of their dreams - they could then re-read all the dreams in their diary and rethink them.

Your body's internal clock is just as good, if not better, than a mechanical clock. In the center of the brain is a collection of nerves called the suprachiasmatic nucleus, which controls the body's clock - the circadian rhythm. It determines periods of sleepiness and alertness, controls blood pressure, body temperature and sense of time.

Essentially, our body is a perfectly tuned machine, and this machine loves predictability: the body's performance is most efficient when there is a routine consistency. So if you fall asleep and wake up at the same time for several days, your internal clock adjusts to this schedule.

The sleep-wake cycle is regulated by the PER protein. Protein levels rise and fall throughout the day, peaking in the evening and falling at night. When PER levels are low, your blood pressure drops, your heart rate slows, and your thinking becomes foggy—you become sleepy.

If you wake up at the same time every day, your body will learn to produce enough PER at the right time - about an hour before waking up, PER levels, along with body temperature and blood pressure, will begin to rise. To prepare for the stress of waking life, the body produces a cocktail of stress hormones - cortisol.

This is why you wake up before your alarm clock. In fact, your body hates this alarm clock - for it, such a sharp awakening is stress, shock. The alarm clock nullifies all the work of your body - it prevents it from waking up gradually, naturally.

By the way, if you don't wake up before your alarm clock, you're probably not getting enough sleep or going to bed on schedule. If, for example, you get up at different times on weekdays and weekends, you “reset” your internal clock. Without a schedule, your body doesn't know when to wake up, so when your alarm goes off, you feel dazed and irritable.

You hit the snooze button, and since your body is already awake, albeit in a state of stress, the subsequent phase of REM sleep further throws off your internal clock. The hormones that help you sleep get mixed up with the hormones that help you wake up - the body gets confused and gets worse with each repeat alarm. So morning warbles are the worst way to start the day.

Acid indigestion, or heartburn, is a burning sensation in the chest. The cause of this unpleasant phenomenon is our regurgitation of stomach acid. Once it starts in the chest, the burning sensation can spread to the neck, throat and even jaw. Heartburn can lead to the development of gastroesophageal reflux disease.

Most of us are familiar with this unpleasant sensation, but keep in mind - sleeping on the left side of the body can help relieve heartburn, while sleeping on the right will only make the situation worse.

Presumably, this happens because while sleeping on the right side, the orbicularis muscle, which prevents the passage of food debris from the stomach into the esophagus, relaxes, ceases to perform its function, and the acidity of the esophagus thus increases.

Scientists have been able to develop a technique for decoding brain impulses that allows you to understand the category to which your dream belongs with an accuracy of up to 60%.

The fact is that in our dreams the same visual images are often repeated, for example, “tree” or “person”. The researchers identified about 20 main categories, developed separately for each participant. Note that such objects as, for example, “ice axe”, “key” and “piston” belong to the same category - “tools”.

Three volunteers were asked to look at photos from the Internet that fit these categories, while their brain activity was monitored. Then the data obtained was entered into a specially developed computer program, after which scanning continued during sleep. Researchers led by neurologist Yuki Kamitani monitored the brain activity of the subjects at this moment. Once it was possible to determine what the volunteers were seeing in their dreams, they were woken up and asked to describe their dreams.

So far, the system is far from perfect and can only guess visualizations from a wide range of categories. Decoding the details of dreams is currently not possible.

There is a common myth that if you wake up a sleepwalker, they may go into severe shock and even have a heart attack. In fact, waking up from such a dream is not dangerous in itself. But if you happen to see a person walking in his sleep, it is still better not to wake him up - both for him and for you.

While there is nothing dangerous to his health in the awakening of a person suffering from sleepwalking, there is a high probability that a person from unexpectedness may injure himself and cause harm to the one who woke him up. Typically, a sleepwalker begins to walk during the third stage of slow-wave sleep, also known as non-REM sleep. At this stage, sleep is very deep and waking up at this time is quite difficult, although possible. However, waking up can lead to cognitive impairment (scientists call this condition “sleep inertia”) that can last about 30 minutes.

Experts in the field of sleep disorders say that a person who suddenly awakens from a deep sleep may become very frightened, not understand where he is for a long time, or become extremely agitated. He could easily not recognize you, push you or hit you. But even if such a person did not react aggressively, he can still cause harm to both you and himself: many sleepwalkers go to the kitchen to cook in a dream or even try to drive a car with all the ensuing consequences.

Instead of waking a sleepwalker, experts advise gently and slowly guiding him back to bed.

Poor sleep significantly affects your daily relationships as a couple: usually the partner who gets less sleep or often has nightmares becomes grumpy, begins to complain about life and accuses the other of not being appreciated or not being given enough attention. Researchers at the University of Berkeley wondered why this was happening.

Scientists asked 60 couples of different ages, from 18 to 56 years old, to keep a sleep diary. Participants had to write down each morning how well they slept and add how they felt about their partner. In addition, while resolving controversial issues in the family, a video was recorded. Those people whose sleep was worse turned out to be much more intolerant and irritable.

There are several reasons why a person may not get enough sleep - for example, snoring or loud noises from the next room that interfere with sleep. And some people are proud that they sleep a day and can go without sleep for a long time.

Experts recalled that adequate sleep is extremely important for physical and mental health, and in order to feel alert and active, a person needs from 5 to 8 hours of sleep every day.

Today, every third person on Earth suffers from insomnia. Only 40% of the world's population gets enough sleep.

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A normal-looking Dutch village where everyone suffers from dementia

Previously, it was believed that the gods themselves sent dreams to people endowed with high social status, and dream interpreters accompanied commanders during military campaigns. During the Roman Empire, some dreams even became the subject of legal proceedings.

There are many known cases when people of art and science came up with their best ideas in a dream.

The iconic creator of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, believed that sleep is the time when a person refuses to interact with the outside world and enters into communication with the inner world, with his subconscious.

So what is sleep, from a physiological point of view, and what is interesting about the dreaming process itself? On World Sleep Day, which this year is celebrated around the world on March 17, Sputnik Georgia offers the top 20 most little-known facts about dreams.

1. How long do we sleep?

It's unfortunate, but true. The average person spends a third of their life sleeping. As you know, during proper sleep, the body restores the strength spent on daytime activity and “puts itself in order.” This is why a healthy person wakes up feeling fresh and energized. Well, at best!

2. Dreams against psychosis

Dreams are an excellent remedy against psychosis. In one study, participants were not allowed to dream, although they were allowed to sleep at least 8 hours a night. After three days, all participants in the experiment began to experience difficulty concentrating, irritability, hallucinations and the first signs of psychosis. When the subjects were given the opportunity to dream, all signs of incipient psychosis disappeared, and the subjects themselves began to have more dreams than usual.

3. What lies behind dreams?

We get the most mysterious, exciting and interesting experiences in life when we sleep and dream. When we fall asleep, our will loses control over our thoughts, and a completely special type of thinking arises. It is thanks to him that we are able to observe fantastic images, distorted and unrelated plot scenes, where time flows differently than in real life. And that's great!

4. We remember only 10% of our dreams

You know that within the first five minutes after waking up, we have a real chance to “grab by the tail” about half the plot of the dream, but after ten minutes, 90% of the content, alas, will be lost, and the meaning of the dream will crumble like a house of cards.

5. It’s impossible not to dream

Many people claim that they never dream. But the complete absence of dreams is a manifestation of some severe mental illnesses. All normal people dream when they fall asleep, but most immediately forget them when they wake up. This is confirmed by encephalograms taken during sleep. In the entire history of only one patient in a military hospital in Israel, such an examination did not show the “presence” of dreams. That man had previously been wounded in the head.

6. Even the blind can dream

It has been proven that people who have lost their sight during their lives dream on a par with sighted people. People who are blind from birth do not see images in the usual sense, but they also experience various emotions in dreams: images in their subconscious are formed through smells, sounds and tactile sensations.

7. In dreams we see only real people

It is noteworthy that our subconscious is not able to independently and arbitrarily generate people’s faces. This means that we have seen absolutely all the strangers in our dreams at some point, but may not have remembered them. During our lives, under different circumstances, millions of faces pass by us, which means that our brain will never experience a shortage of new actors for the most unexpected roles in the scenarios of our dreams.

8. Not everyone can have colorful dreams.

Unpleasant, but true! About 12% of sighted people dream exclusively in monochrome. More precisely, this was the case until the mid-sixties. Later, the proportion of people who dream exclusively in black and white fell to 4.4% of the total study sample. Interestingly, many sleep researchers suggest that the reason for this trend is the ubiquity of color television broadcasting.

Screensaver of the program "Good night, kids"

9. Dreams are symbolic

You've probably heard the joke about Sigmund Freud and his niece: "Sometimes a banana is just a banana." However, seriously, dreams cannot be interpreted straightforwardly and unambiguously, since any image in a dream can be a symbol of another object. Through dreams, our subconscious speaks to us in the language of metaphors and symbols. Some of them have a global, unambiguous interpretation on all continents, others contain signs that only we can understand.

10. Subconscious games

Psychoanalysts have long noticed that dreams are a way to solve some psychological problems. A person in unrealistic conditions “loses” critical situations and finds a way out of them that suits him and does not traumatize the psyche. And, even if in real life he sometimes has to come to terms with a different decision, he gives vent to his emotions in a dream. Perhaps this is why men in their dreams are much more aggressive than in life, and women are more sexual.

11. Amazing fact

It is known that the natives of Bali, when suddenly frightened, fall asleep, as is typical of some insects.

12. Sad dreams

As sad as it may sound, the most common emotions experienced in dreams are melancholy, anxiety or despair, and, in general, negative emotions in dreams prevail over positive ones.

13. Number of dreams

Everyone is familiar with the expression: “Having the seventh dream.” It turns out that we are actually capable of seeing from four to seven dreams per night. On average, dreaming takes two hours a night.

14. Lucid dreaming

Most of the images in your dream are unique to one specific case. Scientists know this because some people have the ability to see their dreams as observers without waking up. This state of consciousness is called lucid dreaming, which is a big mystery.

As studies conducted on different groups of animals prove, many of them experience similar patterns of nervous activity during sleep. The mental impulses of highly developed animals during sleep are practically no different in pattern from those of humans, from which we can confidently conclude that animals also dream. Moreover, many of them experience what they see no less emotionally than in reality.

16. Body paralysis during sleep

Sleep scientists distinguish two key stages of sleep - deep sleep and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. The REM phase is an absolutely normal sleep state, occupying 20 to 25% of all sleep time. It is during the REM sleep phase that a person dreams. To eliminate involuntary physical movements of the body, the subconscious literally paralyzes it during the REM phase of sleep, but for unknown reasons this mechanism often malfunctions.

17. Women and men dream differently

As you know, representatives of the weak and strong half of humanity see dreams differently. In two cases out of three, a man communicates, fights, or establishes a relationship with a man in a dream. In women's dreams there is no such bias, and they see approximately the same number of women and men.

18. Smoker's dream

They say that people who quit smoking have much more vivid dreams than smokers or those who have never smoked.

19. Dream - prediction

According to research results, from 18% to 38% of respondents had a dream-prediction at least once in their lives, and 70% of citizens experienced deja vu. Belief in the very possibility of prophetic dreams is widespread almost everywhere - from 63 to 98% of respondents in different countries of the world.

20. Woe from Wit

History says that some historical figures were able to sleep only 3-4 hours a day. Edison, Da Vinci, Franklin, Tesla, Churchill - they all slept much less than the recognized norm and felt quite healthy. However, scientists argue that such sleep disturbances are the other side of great talent or genius, which is not always for the good.

World Sleep Day was first celebrated on March 14, 2008 and has since been held annually on the Friday of the second full week of March as part of the World Health Organization (WHO) project on sleep and health. Each year, the day's events focus on a specific theme. On World Sleep Day, public service announcements, conferences and symposiums are organized to raise awareness of the importance of sleep, sleep problems and the impact of sleep disorders on human health and society as a whole.

Dreams are a very mysterious phenomenon. For centuries, people have been trying to understand why we have this or that dream, how to decipher dreams and find out at what exact moment a person has a dream.

Even in ancient times, dreams were given great importance, so people tried to interpret dreamed events. Interest in this topic has not diminished now. Let's look at the most pressing issues regarding dreams.

Why do people have dreams: reasons

Dreams are the stories and images our minds create while we sleep. They can be interesting, funny, romantic, disturbing, scary, and sometimes strange. Dreams are a constant source of mysteries for scientists and psychologists. What secrets of dreams do we not yet know and why do we dream?

There are several theories that talk about the causes of dreams. Are they simply part of the sleep cycle, or do they serve some other purpose? Let's try to figure it out.

So why do people have dreams? Possible explanations include:

Representation of unconscious desires and wishes. Sigmund Freud was convinced that dreams represent certain unfulfilled desires. Later researchers saw in them a more pragmatic quality, as a reflection of waking life.
Systematization and processing of information collected during the day. According to Francis Crick, information is sorted during sleep. Some data is retained in memory, others are deleted.
Works as a form of psychotherapy. Dreams help us cope with strong emotions such as fear, sadness and love.
Dreams help prepare for possible threats or dangers. Scientists from Finland have found that reproducing a threat or danger during sleep makes it possible to better prepare for it.

Psychoanalysts believe that dreams provide an outlet for our emotions and mental stress, thereby allowing us to reboot the brain. Dreams help balance our emotions and provide an opportunity to get rid of unnecessary information.

As a rule, a person dreams every 90 minutes, and they last up to 45 minutes. It is known that people have the most intense dreams in the morning. Every person has dreams, but not everyone remembers them. You will learn how to remember a dream in one of the following paragraphs.

What are lucid dreams

Let's move away from the topic a little and talk about what lucid dreams are. Sometimes a sleeping person may be aware that he is in a dream. This can happen either spontaneously or after various training sessions. This state is called lucid dreaming.

Modern methods of entering lucid dreams have appeared, for example, keeping a dream diary, using special devices (devices that record rapid eye movements and send light signals to the sleeper’s eyelids), etc.

People's ability to be lucid in dreams varies; some people are naturally able to control dreams, while others need to develop this ability. There are attempts to use lucid dreams in psychotherapy.

Based on evidence and new methodologies, researchers have proposed that dreams serve the following functions:

memory processing, to reduce emotional arousal and help with further stressful events;
preparing for possible future threats;
simulation of real life events;
assistance in the development of cognitive abilities;
activating a unique state of consciousness that includes experiencing the present, processing the past, and preparing for the future;
Dreams help us learn and develop long-term memories.

During sleep, our brain analyzes the information received during the day, sorts it, choosing what is important to remember and what can be temporarily removed. We also search for solutions to pressing issues for humans. That is why very often the correct decision on an issue of interest comes in the morning, because at night the brain processed all the information received and found a solution to the problem.

Should you always have dreams? During sleep, our body relaxes and gains strength. But the brain continues to work, since it controls the functioning of all organs. It analyzes the information accumulated by a person during the day, so a healthy person should dream every day. But he may simply not remember them.

Blind people also dream. It’s just that in their dreams, instead of some images, there will be smells or sensations.

So, everyday dreams at night are normal. And also, to make your dreams pleasant, try to relax before going to bed, turning off your phone, computer and TV, and think only about pleasant things.

Fatigue. The reason for the lack of dreams is often cited as sound sleep when a person is very tired. Your brain is trying to get rid of mental or physical stress, so it can't generate dreams on top of that.
Uncomfortable sleeping conditions. Dreams stop happening if a person is in an uncomfortable position, lying on a bed that is too hard or too soft. Such conditions make it difficult to process information and emotions that a person received during the day and turn them into colorful images.
Hypnotic. Sleeping pills work by partially shutting down the brain and allowing it to relax. Nerve impulses are blocked and the person does not fall into the rapid cycle.
Stress. Dreams will not arise if the day before you were very nervous and received a range of negative emotions. This happens because with nervous tension a person does not fall into the rapid phase of sleep.
Diseases. A person may not have dreams or he may simply not remember them if he has certain health problems. Diseases of the heart and nervous system, problems with the respiratory system, or general malaise due to any pathologies are directly related to the lack of dreams.

One reason it's hard to remember the contents of a dream is that the brain chemical associated with memory—norepinephrine—and the electrical activity in the brain that helps you remember are at their lowest levels when you're asleep.

A person quickly forgets what he dreamed if he wakes up abruptly in the morning and starts hastily getting ready for work. In a hurry, when you need to solve many things in a short time, the dream is simply erased from memory. We may not remember our dreams, but it is estimated that people have them 3 to 6 times a night.

About 95 percent of dreams are forgotten when a person gets out of bed.

To remember a dream, you need to write down in a notebook or on your phone everything that happened in the dream in the morning, without being distracted by other things (without getting out of bed and without thinking about anything else). You can keep a special diary in which you write down your dreams every day.

Imaginative thinking also works well. If you don’t have time to write down information, then you can try to remember the key moments of the dream, linking them with some events from real life, coming up with memorable associations. It’s even easier to record a story about your dream on a voice recorder in the morning.

Frightening dreams, if they occur infrequently, may even be beneficial because they help the body deal with stress. If such dreams become constant, then this is a certain signal from the body.

Nightmares sometimes result from real life problems, especially if the unpleasant situation lasts for a long time. This is a reflection of a person’s internal experiences, conflicts and pain. If you start having nightmares after the death of a loved one, an accident or other stressful events, then it may be difficult to get rid of them alone and you will need the help of psychologists.

Nightmares can also accompany a person during periods of depression, overwork, or illness. You can get rid of them by visualizing dream scenes that cause the most acute negative reaction. These scenes need to be changed by replaying the plot in a positive way.

Exercise during the day, a hot bath before bed, and avoiding overeating right before bed can help improve your sleep quality.

Why do people often have nightmares at high temperatures?

There are two versions explaining this phenomenon. First: a sharp rise in temperature against the background of an acute infection can make “changes” in the functioning of the brain, provoking the appearance of nightmares, and in rare cases, hallucinations. It is believed that nerve cells are more likely to be affected by intoxication of the body than by fever itself.

The second version is that temperature makes sleep more interrupted, causing the patient to wake up more often, including the rapid phase of sleep, when vivid and sometimes frightening dreams appear. Healthy people, as you know, also regularly see nightmares in their dreams, but do not remember them, since they safely continue to sleep.

By the way, there is a hypothesis that frequent awakenings at high temperatures are an adaptation mechanism that prevents excessive heat loss.

Dreams appear in the REM sleep phase, which occurs not only in humans, but also in mammals and birds. When a cat or dog twitches its paws, meows, barks, or growls in a dream, this means that a typical animal scenario is being played out at the moment (chasing prey, fighting an enemy, etc.).

The only thing that has not yet been established is how exactly the dream manifests itself. That is, do animals see dreams the way people see them, or at this moment the usual reactions simply turn on. Interestingly, the stage of REM sleep (it is at this stage that dreams are best remembered) lasts longer in predators than in prey. For example, in cats it takes up 20% of the total sleep time, and in rabbits only 3%.

What factors can affect sleep content?

Sounds

Certain sounds can affect your dreams in different ways. There are even specially designed applications. They include certain sounds, depending on what kind of dreams you need.

Some psychologists say that if you want to see your dreams come true in your dreams, turn on your favorite music album. It is advisable that you choose a calm composition. It is unlikely that you will be able to fall asleep to energetic music. If you want to be transported to the beach while you sleep, turn on the sound of the ocean.

Smells

Several years ago, studies were conducted that proved the importance of smells for dreams. After waking up, subjects were asked what they dreamed about. Those who had the smell of roses in the room had a positive dream, while those in the room with the smell of rotten eggs had a negative dream.

Psychologists explain this by saying that if the smell of flowers, chocolate or perfume during wakefulness causes positive emotions, then when a person sleeps these smells will also contribute to positive dreams.

Sleeping position

Studies have shown that if, for example, a person sleeps on their stomach, this can cause erotic dreams.

It is also known that the best way to remember the content of a dream is to remain in the same position in which you were when you woke up. And if you wake up to go to the bathroom and want to get into the same dream again, try to return to the position you were sleeping in before getting up.

State of mind

It's not surprising that your state of mind—what's happening to you and around you—has a huge impact on your dreams. For example, depression can affect the color palettes of dreams. If you had a dream in black and white or with muted colors or shades of gray, this could be a sign of depression.

The weather conditions you dream about are also related to your mood. The tornado brings concern. A clear, calm mind dreams of sunny days. Depression and sadness can create rain in your dream.

Many secrets of dreams have not yet been revealed. Dreams are difficult to study in the laboratory, but technology and new research methods can help us understand them better.

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