Why do

we
DREAM
By: Reagan Katetei
 What are
dreams
•To understand our main question, we need to know what
dreams are. Dreams themselves are less mysterious, they
are images and stories that our brain creates when we are
asleep by piecing clips of memories together. You can
dream any time during the five sleep stages (more on them
later) but the most vivid dreams occur during the fifth
stage, REM (Rapid Eye Movements). They can be fun,
relaxing and entertaining while some dreams can be
disturbing, frightening and bizarre. Although it may seem
we know a lot about dreams we have barely scratched the
surface. The main reason that make dreams so hard to
study is that you can’t really control them or tell when you
are going to have a dream, they are completely
unpredictable, and when you do have them, you forget
90%-95% of the dream as soon as you wake up and get
out of bed to start your day.
What are the
purpose of dreams
One idea of what dreams do is that they are
subjective to what you are going through in
your life. They can be a way of your body
subconsciously trying to help you get over
something stressful or traumatic you have
gone through in the past. Dreaming helps you
develop and evaluate memories and serves as
“revision” for various situations and challenges
that you face during your waking hours. So
often dreams are similar to what your life is
currently like. If you are starting a new job, you
may have a dream where you are the CEO of
that company, or if you have a close friend or
family member that has recently passed away
you may have nightmares about their death
happening over and over again.
 Types of Dreams
• There are 4 main types of dreams:
• Normal dreams: These types of dreams are the most common
types of dreams. People have these dreams the most out of any
other when sleeping. They are (mostly) calm and tend to have
some form of meaning to them
• Daydreams: Having your head in the clouds during the day is quite
good sometimes it helps us grasp our goals, and reveal our
innermost hopes, desires and fears it also slightly decreases our
stress and anxiety levels because you escape reality and get to relax
• Lucid dreams: Lucid dreams are the most vivid and rare kind of
dream. It gives the dreamer the ability to know they they are
dreaming and, in some cases, control it and influence what
happens.
• Nightmares: These dreams are the worst kind to have they are
disturbing, terrifying, off-putting dreams that appear quite lifelike
and often make you wake up tired, stressed, and anxious.
The Role of Dreams in
the Emotional Process
• Many researchers suggest that dreams serve to
relieve emotional distress. So, this means dreams
present stressful circumstances that relate to life
events and help the person solve or heal from
those experiences while they sleep. When you
refuse to handle your negative emotions while
you're awake, the brain works on reducing the
negative emotion while you sleep. Dreams can
help us control our emotions and process
negative ones. Though sometimes this isn't the
case. Vivid, traumatic dreams can be emotionally
stressing, causing depression or anxiety
symptoms. Nightmares were often seen as a
failure to defeat or control the trauma.
What are the 5 stages of sleep?
.
• Stage 1 (wake): During this sleep stage you are still slightly awake and aware of your surroundings
and can easily be woken up. This stage takes up 5 to 10 percent of your total sleep.
• Stage 2 (N1): Your body starts to slow down; your heart rate slows, and your body temperature
drops with only occasional rapid bursts of brain wave. These are called sleep spindles. This process
takes 45 to 55 percent of your total sleep.
• Stage 3 (N2): Your brain begins the process of making slower brain waves called delta waves to
slow down brain activity and your body enters a more subdued state but there are still a few smaller
fast waves. This takes 5 to 10 percent of your total sleep.
• Stage 4 (N3): Eventually the brain starts exclusively making delta waves and almost no other brain
waves because they help relax the brain. It is difficult to wake someone during stage 3 and 4, which
together are called “deep sleep” because there is no eye movement or muscle activity. When you
wake up while in deep sleep you don’t adjust immediately and often feel disoriented for several
minutes. This forms 10 to 15 percent of your total sleep.
• Stage 5 (REM): Your breathing becomes more rapid, irregular, and shallow. Your eyes move
quickly in different directions, and your limbs become temporarily paralyzed. Your heart rate
increases, and blood pressure rises. When people wake up during REM sleep or slightly after, they
often remember images or stories in their mind. These are dreams. This stage takes 20 to 25 percent
of your total sleep.
Sleep Cycles
through the night
•Sleep happens in five stages: wake, N1, N2,
N3, and REM. Stages N1 to N3 are grouped
together and called NREM (non-rapid eye
movement) sleep, with each stage progressively
making the sleep deeper before REM. About
75% of sleep is spent in the NREM stages, with
the most of it spent in the N1 stage.
•A typical night's sleep consists of 4 to 5 sleep
cycles. A sleep cycle is the last 4 sleep stages:
N1, N2, N3, and REM. A complete sleep cycle
takes roughly 90 to 110 minutes. The first REM
period is short, and, as the night progresses,
longer periods of REM and decreased time in
deep sleep (NREM) occur
Science behind dreams
Dreams have been a mystery to scientists for a long time. Our
events, throughout the day or things that have happened
recently are stored in our brain, and during sleep, the brain
begins to sort and group these memories together. This
mainly happens when you are in the stage of sleep known as
REM sleep. During this stage, our brain is more alert and
groups the memories quite fast. As the brain groups the
memories, pieces of them are combined into vivid images,
which we call dreams. This all takes place in the
“hippocampus” in the frontal lobe of our brain. It makes
dreams and is also the part of the brain responsible for
keeping memories. So, dreams are just recycled memories
combined into visual images that we dreams. Some dreams
are less than a minute long, but some can stretch up to 20
minutes long. These are the ones that you remember the most
of because you were there for quite a while. Humans normally
have 4-5 dreams per night (8 hours sleep) sometimes even up
to 7 dreams per night depending on how many REM cycles
you have.
Conclusion
So, from what we gathered about
dreams I think the real reason of why
we dream is to consolidate and
evaluate memories subconsciously;
to help get rid of deep trauma; and
dreams represent unconscious
desires, thoughts, and motives.
 Sources
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20sleep
.
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6428732/
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