Why do people dream. Dreams. Why do we dream? Are dreams prophetic? Misconceptions about dreams. Why does a person sleep? Dreamland: Basic Psychological Theories
Dreams are an amazing phenomenon that accompanies us throughout our lives. It has been closely studied by scientists all over the world for almost a century and a half, but in many ways it still remains unsolved. Some light on the mechanism and causes of the appearance of dreams was shed after the appearance of devices that allow recording brain activity during sleep. But a reliable answer to the question of why we see dreams, and what they really mean, has not yet been obtained.
A bit of history
The ancient Greek philosophers were the first to become interested in the phenomenon of sleep. In particular, Aristotle discussed the causes of dreams. According to his version, we perceive as dreams the pictures that the soul sees, leaving the body for a while and setting off on a journey to higher spheres. This also explained prophetic dreams which sometimes partially or completely came true in reality.
But with the spread of materialistic views of the world, this approach ceased to suit scientists, and they began an active study of the functions human brain, trying to find in it the areas responsible for the formation of dreams. Moreover, the directions of research were divided.
Thus, Academician Pavlov tried to explain the mechanism of the appearance of dreams from a purely physiological point of view, considering a person as a higher mammal (an animal endowed with reason and self-awareness).
He analyzed nerve impulses and activity of the cerebral cortex during sleep and was one of the first to notice its cyclicity.
Another famous scientist, psychologist and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud considered dreams by-product processing by the brain of the signals received during the day. Information is allegedly "rewritten" during the rest from consciousness to the subconscious and is simultaneously filtered, erasing from memory everything unnecessary or traumatic to the psyche.
There is a grain of truth in each of these versions. But none of them is able to give an intelligible answer to the questions that arise if we dig a little deeper into the problem of the appearance of dreams:
- Why doesn't everyone dream?
- Why do some people dream in color and others in black and white?
- Where do plots that are not related to specific events in a person's life come from?
- Why and when do you have prophetic dreams?
- Why are some people aware that they are dreaming and dreaming, while others are not?
Most likely, it will take more than one year to get accurate answers to these questions. research work scientists of various fields: neuropathologists, psychologists, neurosurgeons, etc.
Today there is even a special branch of medicine - somnology, which deals specifically with the study of sleep and the problems of insomnia, which is increasingly common in our time.
Sleep phases
Scientists were able to answer some of the questions and partially understand why people dream after they began to study the changes that occur throughout the body during sleep. It turns out that not only brain activity, as well as body temperature, indicators blood pressure, heart rate, muscle activity.
But the most interesting discovery was the change in the position and pace of movement eyeballs. It gave names to two key phases of sleep: REM and slow wave.
If you briefly describe what happens to a person during sleep, the picture will be something like this:
If sleep is interrupted slow phases That is, during deep relaxation, the person cannot remember the dream and it often seems to him that he did not exist at all. A sharp awakening from slow sleep, for example, by an alarm clock, can lead to headaches, a feeling of weakness, and a decrease in the severity of the reaction.
That is why the increasing popularity of recent times purchase wrist alarm clocks with a built-in electronic analyzer, which, by various reflex reactions of the body, recognize the phases of sleep and give a signal only during the period REM sleep when the person is in a slightly agitated state.
Interestingly, the total duration of the fast and slow phases is approximately the same for everyone and is 90 minutes.
In total, there are several such cycles during the night (depending on total duration rest), in each of which a person with a normal quality of sleep will have a dream. But usually a person remembers only the episode that preceded the awakening.
Most scientists are inclined to conclude that the dream is the product of a series of perfectly coordinated processes occurring in human body during sleep, the violation of any of which leads to the fact that a person stops dreaming. Dreaming is the result of a complex neurochemical interaction between the cerebral cortex and the entire body.
An interesting fact is that if we compare the indicators of brain activity during a dream and experiences similar in content real events, they will be almost the same. Moreover, the whole body reacts to a vivid dream - it may appear physical activity(a person will fight or run away from an imaginary enemy), it is noticeable by eye movements where the gaze of the sleeping person is directed, breathing quickens, blood pressure may jump.
Some people talk in their sleep or wake up screaming if they have nightmares. In history, there are cases of exposing spies who began to speak their native language in their sleep.
But the most interesting thing is that the brain is able to logically integrate into a dream external stimuli. For example, if a person hears the sound of rain, then he will dream of pouring water: a stream, a waterfall, etc.
Other unusual fact is that in a dream the connection between the consciousness and the subconscious of a person is restored, which is turned off during wakefulness. He can replay events over and over again in a dream that he does not remember in reality, as the brain has blocked them due to too strong a negative charge. This is how exhausting nightmares appear, which will be repeated until the person remembers and re-realizes the event, discharging the negative and making it neutral.
Therefore, one of the most effective methods treatments for nightmares are hypnosis sessions, and large doses sleeping pills only deprive a person fast phase sleep, without solving the problem itself.
With the abolition of drugs, everything will return to its place, and the situation may be further aggravated by the fact that most of them are addictive and then a person cannot sleep at all without drugs.
Have a nice sleep!
In order to sleep soundly and see pleasant, positive dreams, it is necessary to provide good conditions for good rest. Here are some simple tricks that will make falling asleep faster and more enjoyable, and will serve as an excellent prevention of nightmares:
Drinking alcohol at night does not improve the quality of sleep and does not contribute to seeing good dreams. It inhibits all nervous processes, plunging a person into a state similar to drug intoxication - he falls into blackness.
If the dose of alcohol was too large and caused negative reactions body - a person will have a nightmare, but due to the severe inhibition of the brain, he will not even be able to wake up to get rid of it.
But well-chosen herbal preparations, warm milk with honey, aromatherapy with lavender or lemon balm, a warm bath or shower before bed will help you relax and fall asleep faster. A call pleasant dreams can positive thoughts about how wonderful tomorrow will be. Then the awakening will be much more pleasant.
Sleep: REM sleep and non-REM sleep. It all starts with slow sleep, which includes 4 stages.
The first stage is sleep. Remember this feeling when you are on the verge of falling into a dream, in a kind of half-sleep that can be interrupted. a sharp shudder. At this time it goes down muscle tone.
The second stage is characterized by shallow sleep and takes most all the time spent sleeping. The heart rate slows down and the 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 of physical sleep. There is blood flow to the muscles increased output growth hormone, etc.
After non-REM sleep ends, REM sleep begins. During such sleep, there are rapid eye movements under the eyelids, an increase in 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 sees dreams.
The functionality of REM sleep is still not fully understood. American scientists believe that it is necessary in order to streamline the information stored in memory. On the basis of experiments, it was proved that the nerve impulses received by a person during wakefulness are reproduced by the brain in a dream seven times faster. Such a reproduction of the 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 on long-term carriers.
Early 20th century scientific world spoke about the fact that during wakefulness in the human body they manage to accumulate chemical compounds such as: carbon dioxide, lactic acid and cholesterol. During sleep, these substances are dissipated, 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. Otherwise, the brain would not be slow to fail.
Another possible explanation the occurrence of dreams - erratic electrical activity. Approximately every 90 minutes, the brain stem activates and begins uncontrolled electrical impulses. Meanwhile, they are intercepted by the forebrain, which is responsible for the analytical processes, which is trying to make sense of obscure signals. This analysis manifests itself in the form of dreams.
It is unlikely that anyone will argue with the fact that sleep is directly related to emotions, fears, desires, both manifested and hidden. At the same time, some factors affecting the organs of perception of a person can also be superimposed on dreams. Depending on these factors, the plot of sleep is constantly changing. Anyone who goes to bed on an empty stomach is likely to see food in a dream. If the sleeper is cold, he will look for warmth and comfort. And a person who lays his hand during sleep will obviously dream that there is a wound on his hand, a cut, or worse.
Why do we dream?
Most Popular modern theories dreams offer several hypotheses: that dreams do not perform any function - dreams are simply useless side effect activation of neurons in the brain of the dreamer, arising from a purely biological reasons(theory of random activation); the idea that in dreams we solve problems (problem solving theory), or that dreams are a kind of psychotherapy: they try to help us cope with negative events in our lives (theory 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 "train" in real world(threat modeling theory).
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 a complex storyline that develops like a good action movie or adventure movie. Such a complex, organized scenario cannot be the result of a simple random activation of the brain.
Problem-solving theories need to prove that we do often find solutions to complex problems in dreams, but that almost never seems to happen. Very rarely do we “see” a realistic solution to complex problems in a dream. There is famous stories about scientists who saw new theoretical ideas in a dream, or about composers who heard in a dream new music. This seems to support the 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 really help get rid of bad memories and feelings, as psychotherapy does. Of course, dreams can help us forget about problems and difficulties; if reality becomes too frightening or depressing, they can take 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 research on dreams and memory: during sleep, emotionally negative memories are selectively enhanced by the brain, and not reduced! The hypothesis that explains this observation is that dreams bring 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 really important to us.
Threat Modeling Theory (Revonsuo, 2000) claims that dreams activate emotional memories and simulate threatening situations, thereby "training" us to respond to threat in the future. It is believed that the function of threat modeling was very important for our ancestors, because the habitat was full of threats for survival. Those who could effectively "model" responses to a threat had an easier time surviving in the real world, and so dreams gradually, over the course of natural selection, have acquired the function of a "simulator" of behavior in threatening situations.
A. Revonsuo. "Psychology of Consciousness"
Data from dream research shows that dreams are often associated with threatening events (following, fleeing, being attacked, failing to perform a dangerous or important task, repeated attempts to do so, accidents; we dream that we are trapped or lost, that we have fallen or lost something). something valuable) and danger threatens the “me in the dream” or our loved ones (Valli & Revonsuo, 2009). In addition, if a person lives in a threatening environment or experiencing emotional stress, scary dreams and he has more nightmares. However, there is still no direct evidence that threatening dreams actually help to cope better. similar situations in real life.
Lucid14 dreams
Reflective consciousness involves the ability to focus on and think about, evaluate, or decide on some particular aspect of the content of consciousness (see Chapter 3). While dreaming, our ability to think critically about the events we observe decreases, but does not disappear completely. Often
in in a dream we think about at least a little, about the strange events that we see in a dream. However, we quickly forget about them, even if these events would absolutely amaze us in reality, where, of course, we would not forget about them and take them for granted.
AT in a dream, we do not realize that its events would be impossible or improbable
in real life, and act and think in this situation (and not about this situation) in the same way as in ordinary life. We simply accept the situation as a fact and in our reflective mind try to guess what to do when in my house a gorilla is already roaming, although this house does not look like the house in which I live in real life, and in addition to the gorilla, my deceased grandfather is in it. We do not question the authenticity of the scene itself.
It is difficult, but sometimes we manage to doubt the reliability of the events taking place in a dream, and even understand that they cannot actually 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 turns from ordinary to lucid, and 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 that I see around do not really exist, they are just images of my dreaming mind.
When such an understanding arises, the dreamer may consciously pay attention to the features of the dream world, follow a deliberate plan, intentionally act in a dream, or recall real life facts stored in his long-term memory. Lucid dream researchers, for example, are experimenting with dream flight, 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 do various experiments in a dream, just out of curiosity, to see what would happen. Some of his experiments are a great demonstration of how the phenomenal image of our body differs from the real physical body:
14 Lucid (lat. 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"
in 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 observe how my sensations that I experience when I lie on my chest change to the sensations that arise when I lie 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 from one body to 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 sensation of having a body—the presence of eyes, hands, a mouth that speaks, and so on—is quite distinct; but at the same time I know that my physical body sleeps and is completely
in another position. At the moment of awakening, these two sensations seem to mix with each other (van Eeden, 1913/1990, pp. 181–182).
The ability to take intentional and even pre-planned actions in lucid dreaming has become the key to innovative laboratory research held in the 80s. These studies have shown that lucid dreams occur during continuous REM sleep. Subjects trained in the lucid dreaming technique can give pre-planned eye movement signals during lucid dreaming. Eye movement recordings show that objective signs of awareness in the eye movement recordings occur at the same time that the EEG records a continuous period of REM sleep. During lucid dreaming there are no sleep disturbances or brief awakenings. Before objective measurements made it possible to obtain indisputable evidence, most sleep researchers believed that lucid dreams occur during brief moments of awakening and therefore cannot be considered dreams at all.
It is possible that many people experience short episodes of lucidity in 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 have lucid dreams at least once a month. However, lucid dreaming is a skill that can be mastered, and with practice, the likelihood of such dreams can be greatly increased. For example, one teaching method is to constantly ask the question "Am I dreaming?" in the waking state and remind yourself before going to sleep that "tonight I will have a dream and understand that it is a dream." In general, writing down our dreams and paying attention to what happens in our dreams can increase the likelihood of lucid dreams - this helps us notice in a dream what we know can only happen in a dream, but not in real life.
Terrible and nightmare dreams
As a rule, lucid dreams are a pleasant and wonderful experience. Unfortunately, there are also extremely unpleasant dreams. Terrible dreams are disturbing dreams that don't wake us up and nightmares are long vivid dreams with extremely frightening content suggesting a threat to life, 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 is awake, remembers the dream that woke him up, but continues to experience the emotions associated with the dream. After that, it is difficult for him to fall asleep, at least immediately.
Nightmares and frightening dreams are a type of dream characterized by a strong negative emotional charge. On average, people report having frightening dreams or nightmares a couple of times a month, but some have them almost every night. If nightmares are frequent and very disturbing to a person, disrupt the normal sleep pattern and regularly lead to insomnia, this condition is diagnosed as a clinical sleep disorder.
Why do we have nightmares and nightmares, and why are they so common? In dreams, negative emotions and events in general are much more common than positive ones. Lucid dreams are a very pleasant type of dream, but they are very rare compared to the most unpleasant forms of dreaming. According to threat modeling theory, the dream brain simulates threatening events to help us "train" survival skills and prepare us to face unpleasant situations in real life. It is believed that this function arose in the course of evolution as a result of natural selection and is also found in other mammals. That is why many of the worst nightmares depict rather primitive threats - the pursuit and aggressive attack of monsters, wild animals, evil people or collision with powerful natural forces– Storms, floods or storms.
Nightmares
Negative emotional charge occurs in some other dream states as well. In nightmares, the sleeping person suddenly screams loudly, jumps up and appears frightened, but is not aware of reality and may find it difficult to calm down or communicate. Night terrors are ASCs, in which some features of deep slow-wave sleep are combined with insomnia. Nightmare not real dream, but it can be accompanied by hypnopompic hallucinations, frightening images of malevolent creatures or strangers in the bedroom, dangerous animals or monsters in our bed, such as spiders or snakes, delusions that burglars or intruders have entered the house. Familiar people and objects may seem dangerous enemies, and a person wants to run or defend himself.
This episode ends when the subject returns to sleep or is fully awake. In any case, he may only have fragmentary memories of what happened to him at night. Night panic is more common in children, but it can also occur in adults. If the sleeper is prone to dangerous escapes from the house or begins to beat and kick the spouse sleeping nearby, night panic attacks may require the help of a sleep disorder specialist. For example, one patient hit the closed window on the second floor, flew out and landed on the ground in front of his house! Fortunately, this disorder responds well to medication and is easily cured.
Sleepwalking
Sleepwalking and sleepwalking are associated with complex behavior and movements in an altered state of consciousness, when a person is partially aware or registers what surrounds him (while his eyes are usually open), but does not understand that he is sleeping. Typical sleepwalking is a simple repetitive behavior: the person opens and closes doors or windows, gets dressed or undressed, walks around the house as if checking to see if everything is in order.
All people dream. Most often, they display emotions, events that happened in real life. The nature of dreams has not yet been studied, although research has been going on since the day science appeared. During sleep brain activity a person slows down, and also slows down the reaction to the world. This state is inherent not only to man, but also to animals. Many believe that in dreams you can see the future. Of course, this fact has not been proven, but many people believe in such information. But today we will not talk about this, but about the most interesting facts about dreams that you definitely didn’t know anything about.
1. Dreams of the blind
Most likely, many did not even realize that blind people also dream. For example, someone who is blind after birth sees color pictures, and someone who was born blind has dreams filled with smells, rustles, and touches.
2. Waking dream
Many have heard this expression, but not everyone thought about what it means? How can you see dreams in reality? Imagine that you are very tired at work. You come home, immediately there is a desire to lie down. Indulge yourself, lie on your back, stretch your arms at your sides, close your eyes, but try not to fall asleep. It turns out that your body is sleeping, but the brain sends signals of wakefulness. You may want to roll over on your side or scratch your head, but these should be ignored. After a while, you will feel a heaviness in your chest and hear strange sounds. Thus comes sleep paralysis. If at this moment you try to open your eyes, then you can see a dream with open eyes but you won't be able to move because the body is already sleeping.
3. Sleep is connected with the outside world
Quite often you may dream of a situation that you really want to drink. In a dream, a person tries to get drunk, but it does not work out for him. After that, the dream recedes and awakening comes, but the thirst remains. The fact is that our subconscious signals to the brain that the body does not have enough water. Thus, an empty glass appears in a dream, and soon awakening comes.
4. Sleep indicates a specific disease
Scientists have been able to prove that Parkinson's disease manifests itself long before a person has the first symptoms. The point is that with the development similar disease, a person can constantly have nightmares in which violence, screams, groans, blows dominate.
5. Dreams of an "owl"
It's no secret that people are divided into two types: larks (go to bed early and wake up early) and owls (go to bed late and like to sleep until dinner). So, scientists have proven that it is owls who have nightmares much more often than larks.
6. Learning in a dream
A fairly convenient way of learning is in a dream. It is called "diffusion of knowledge from a book through a pillow." Experts have found that in this way it is possible to solve the tasks and problems that have accumulated during the day.
7. Strangers in dreams
Sometimes we may dream unfamiliar men or women who are trying to harm us. After waking up, we wake up with the thought that these people do not exist, our brain created them. However, this is not entirely true, the fact is, our subconscious is not able to invent new faces, but remembering is easy. Perhaps these are people whom you once saw, but have already forgotten.
8. Dreams of men and women
Scientists have found that men are much more likely to dream sexual in nature, while women have nightmares in their dreams.
9. Dreams keep you from going crazy
Everyone knows that a person needs to sleep every day. But why? Scientists have partially been able to answer this question. It turns out that if a person does not sleep for more than a day, then he has problems concentrating, hallucinations, unreasonable irritability appear - all these signs indicate the onset of psychosis. If a person falls asleep, then after waking up, all symptoms completely disappear.
10. How much sleep do you need?
Most likely, in childhood, many heard from their parents that they need to sleep as much as possible. Already in adulthood, some try to adhere to this principle. But is it right? If for children this is a benefit, then for adults it can even be harmful. Scientists have proven that an adult needs to sleep 6-7 hours a day to reduce the risk of dying prematurely. This fact is also confirmed by the fact that newborns sleep 20 hours a day, then with age the number of hours decreases, so teenagers rest 10 hours, young people - 8, and old people - 4, because they suffer from insomnia.
American scientists, after a series of studies, came to the conclusion that dreams are seen only smart people. Most people either simply don't dream or don't remember. And those who can do well on intelligence tests always have dreams and can tell them. And than better results tests, the more colorful dreams people have. However, there is nothing inexplicable in this, the main physiological function sleep is the ordering of information that a person learned in one day. That's why it's not for nothing that it says folk wisdom that the morning is wiser than the evening. If a person is not intellectually developed, then he does not strive to find answers to all questions, so his brain will sleep sweetly at night.
Ivanna Naumenko
Our dreams are a world in which reality, passing through the human subconscious, creates images that often have nothing to do with reality, but thus reflecting our thoughts, feelings, emotions. This state can be compared to a mirror of an irregular spherical shape, which seems to show us the real world, but distorts reality. Each of us has been dreaming since childhood. Going to sleep, we wish each other " good dreams”, but what actually comes to us in a dream remains a mystery. human memory has the ability to remember images, fantasies created by our imagination, and all this, superimposed on a concrete reality, comes to us in a dream. We can re-experience, but in a form divorced from reality, some events that happened to us during the day, experience and feel desires that are not realized in real life, and even see ourselves from the side in an unsightly, frightening way. Dreams can fulfill our desires, but they can also terrify us so much that when we wake up we will experience great pleasure and relief from the realization that "this is just a dream." Happy is the person who, after the wishes " good night!" sees calm, beautiful and even fascinating dreams. The brilliant A. Einstein very expressively said about this state - "I spent a third of my life in a dream, and this third is by no means the worst."
Obviously, sleep is an integral part of our lives that we face on a daily basis. And if after waking up it seems to you that the night passed without dreams, then this is a delusion. Everyone sees dreams, but not everyone remembers them. Sometimes forgetfulness is a form of psychological defense. Of course, this also depends on individual features memory. The human brain is arranged in such a way that it stores only vivid, emotionally colored images and fantasies in its memory. This is what explains a large number of dreams in a child.
Despite everything, scientists still cannot answer the question: “where do dreams come from?”. The question, “why is a dream of this or that content dreaming?”, in general, has no answer. Humanity since ancient history unsuccessfully tried to find an explanation for this phenomenon. For example, Aristotle explained sleep as something intermediate between life and death. Delphic priests predicted the future by analyzing dreams received from the god of dreams, Morpheus. In ancient Greece, the god of sleep Hypnos and the god of death Thanatos, in general, were twins - to such an extent the Greeks were afraid of that mystery and uncertainty inherent, in their understanding, to this human condition. Over the following centuries, people have not been able to move forward in solving this problem. Almost until the beginning of the twentieth century, an attempt to explain dreams all the time was reduced to a "supernatural" version. Sigmund Freud was the first who tried to explain this phenomenon without resorting to "otherworldly" forces. At the dawn of the new century, in 1900, he wrote a book, Scientific research"The Interpretation of Dreams". The main idea of this work was the assertion that unconscious processes human psyche can be traced through dreams, their interpretation and comprehension. This well-known "Freudian" theory of the unconscious remains relevant and modern scientists have not yet found a better theoretical basis for explaining the nature of sleep.
But this does not mean that science has not made any progress in this matter. It has been proven that it is still possible to control a person's sleep in some way, through preliminary suggestion and "programming" of dreams. In 1978, a serious study was conducted under the supervision of psychologists, where their subjects, who did not fully know the purpose of the experiment, were "implicitly" inspired with the idea that they were wearing red-rimmed glasses. After waking up, almost all of them said that they had dreams that were visually colored in red. The physiology of sleep is now no longer a mystery. Scientists have come to a common understanding about the processes occurring in the human brain during its stay in the sleep stage.
Modern ideas about the origin of dreams are based on the thesis that they occur in a certain period of time, which scientists call "REM sleep". It is during this period that our brain experiences a very high activity. This phase of sleep alternates with "slow" and repeats cyclically up to 5 times during the night. The dream itself, according to modern researchers, is the result of human thinking processes that occur unconsciously. In those images that a person sees in a dream, his psyche at an unconscious level brings to consciousness that form of behavior that can be used by him after waking up in solving a specific problem. From this it follows that everything that happens to us in a dream, during the "fast phase" is a way of compensating for all dissatisfaction during the waking period. Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine Richard John Roberts noted that if a person does not dream for a long time, then he can fall into a state bordering on insanity. In his opinion, this happens because the human brain accumulates great amount fragmentary ideas and reflections, unnecessary and insignificant impressions that block the necessary thoughts.
The well-known Russian proverb “the morning is wiser than the evening” is also proof that the brain during sleep continues to look for ways out of the current situation in which a person got into the day before. modern science came to the conclusion that calmer person, the shorter his REM sleep phase. This is due to the fact that he does not have unmet needs and, accordingly, the need for this form of sleep is minimal. The state of stress, anxiety, unresolved problems, as well as illness, all this, on the contrary, makes the brain tense, active state during REM sleep and the night is accompanied by dreams. After waking up, as a rule, the problem has clear solutions.
We tried to explain what actually happens to us during dreams, which are always, very often absolutely invisibly, present in our lives. Do not be afraid of them, but rather try to understand the hidden meaning inherent in them. No wonder they say, - "Dreams are today's answers to tomorrow's questions."
