When we sleep we enter into a world unknowingly which is full of delusions, fantasies, and imaginations. The series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur in our subconscious mind involuntarily during certain stages of sleep is known as Dream.
Dreams occur in the rapid- eye movement (R.E.M.) stage of sleep when the brain activity is high. If a person is awakened during this stage of sleep then they generally remember the dream which is seen by them during this stage. R.E.M. sleep is understood by the continuous movements of the eyes. The eye movement can be caused due to the changing of scenes in a dream. Dreams can appear in an average of three to seven times during a one night sleep. It can last for a few seconds to 20-30 minutes.
During sleep, the mind and the body relaxes from the long day activities. People experience a lot during the day and there is actually a little time to process each thing while being awake. So it is during sleep when all the things experienced during or throughout the day are processed. This shows that the mind is more active during a dream than when someone is awake.
Dreams take place in the subconscious mind. During sleep, the conscious mind sleeps but the subconscious mind never really sleeps. The subconscious mind becomes busy processing the thoughts and the concerns during sleep. This process thus generates dreams. Thus it is believed that dreams are what what we see or experience throughout the day. It is the summation of all the events and the physical and emotional exercises that we undergo during the day appears to us in the form of dreams in a more creative way .
In dreams we can see only the familiar faces. Subconscious mind cannot invent new faces as it only contains the memory that it has stored when the conscious mind was awake. It is very interesting to know that dreams do not show reading. Meaning a person can’t dream about reading a book during their sleep. It is because the dreams take place in the subconscious mind and it cannot make any words or letters as it is the job of the conscious mind.
Men and women dream differently. It is observed that the dreams of men usually contains aggression, physical activities, and also the quantity of people in a man’s dream is usually less. But a woman’s dream is totally opposite. The dream of women usually contains emotional situations and their dreams generally have more number of people unlike that of a man’s dream.
If a person is undergoing through underlying stress and anxiety then the negative dreams can appear which consists of anger, fear, insecurity, and sadness. Unpleasant dreams give a sign that the mental health of the person is disturbed and it needs to be taken care of immediately.
Sometimes the dreams give the feeling of “déjà vu”. After waking we feel that the thing that appeared in the dream is taking place in reality. The researches suggest that dreams recharge creativity. While sleep, the subconscious mind is dealing with and working out the problems and thus provides solutions by reliving the events. For example James Watson envisioned the DNA double helix.
There are different kinds of dreams:
• Daydreams: It is referred to as the dreaming while we are awake.
• Recurring dreams: These are the dreams which occurs repeatedly for more than once.
• False awakening: Sometimes while dreaming we find ourselves woken up from sleep but later it is understood that we are not actually awake it was just a part of the dream.
• Healing dreams: These dreams are generally the comfort giving and good vibes giving dreams.
• Nightmares: These are the dreams which are full of negativity. People having nightmares see dreams having the theme of dying or any other type of violence. Also, sometimes if anyone sees a scary dream it is also referred to as a nightmare. Some nightmares can be so dangerous that people just wake up from sleep and starts to scream.
• Lucid dreams: These dreams generally take place in the R.E.M. stage of sleep. Lucid dreams are the ones when someone know that they are dreaming and thus they can control their dreams too at that stage of sleep.
People experience a lot everyday so it is very much normal to have dreams everyday as it is the processing of the memories stored in the subconscious mind. So even if people dream everyday 3-7 dreams, not all dreams can be remembered.
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