Why do we Dream when we Sleep ?

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Why do we dream?

Two different schools of thought exist as to why we dream: the physiological school, and the psychological school.

Both, however, agree that we dream during the REM, or rapid eye movement, phase of sleep. During this phase of sleep, our closed eyes dart rapidly about, our brain activity peaks, and our muscles suffer temporary paralysis.

The physiological theory centers upon how our body, specifically our brains, function during the REM phase of sleep. Proponents of this theory believe that we dream to exercise the synapses, or pathways, between brain cells, and that dreaming takes over where the active and awake brain leaves off. When awake, our brains constantly transmit and receive messages, which course through our billions of brain cells to their appropriate destinations, and keep our bodies in perpetual motion. Dreams replace this function.

Two underpinning physiological facts go towards supporting this theory of dreams. The first lies in the fact that the first two or so years of ones life, the most formative ones for learning, are also the ones in which the most REM sleep occurs. It follows that during this time of the greatest REM sleep, we experience the greatest number of dreams. The second physiological fact that lends credence to this theory is that our brain waves during REM sleep, as recorded by machines measuring the brain's electrical activity, are almost identical in nature to the brain waves during the hours we spend awake. This is not the case during the other phases of sleep.

Psychological theorists of dreams focus upon our thoughts and emotions, and speculate that dreams deal with immediate concerns in our lives, such as unfinished business from the day, or concerns we are incapable of handling during the course of the day. Dreams can, in fact, teach us things about ourselves that we are unaware of.

Connections between dreams that the human psyche have been made by many people over thousands of years. The famous Greek philosopher, Aristotle wrote in his "Parva Naturalia," over 2,200 years ago, of a connection between dreams, waking experiences, and emotional needs.

Others have delved into more complicated explanations for dreams, such as the prophetic nature of dreams written of in the Bible, which was and is a belief held by many cultures. Sigmund Freud, one of the fathers of modern psychology, believed dreams to be symbolic of any number of things buried deep within our minds and our memories.

Until someone proves or disproves one of these theories, or poses an alternate one, we are left at square one. Our knowledge as to what causes us to dream is limited to the fact that we do dream, and that dreams occur during the REM phase of sleep.

Other Answers:
is the experience of envisioned images, voices, or other sensations during sleep. Dreams often portray events which are impossible or unlikely in reality, and are usually outside the control of the dreamer. Many people report experiencing strong emotions while dreaming, and frightening or upsetting dreams are referred to as nightmares. The scientific discipline of dream research is oneirology.

Dreams have a long history both as a subject of conjecture and as a source of inspiration (artistic or otherwise). Throughout history, people have sought meaning in dreams. They have been described physiologically as a response to neural processes during sleep, psychologically as reflections of the unconscious, and spiritually as messages from God or predictions of the future (oneiromancy).

Most scientists believe that almost all humans dream with approximately the same frequency. Even those who rarely recall dreams report having them if awakened during rapid eye movement REM sleep. Dreaming in animals varies from species to species. Some species don't dream at all.

Understanding dreams
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Neurology of dreams

There is no universally agreed-upon biological definition of dreaming. Dreams are typically associated with REM sleep, a phase of brain activity which occurs towards the end of the sleep cycle. REM sleep is characterized by rapid horizontal eye movements, stimulation of the pons, increased respiratory and heart rate, and temporary paralysis of the body. Subjects awakened during REM sleep usually report having been dreaming. However, a small fraction of subjects also report dreaming in other phases of sleep. Some neurologists even group mental phenomena such as daydreaming under the umbrella of dreaming.

Some studies on time sense during dreams have determined that a subject's sense of time during a dream closely matches their time sense during waking activity. In other words, if a dream feels like it lasted twenty minutes, these studies suggest it was indeed about twenty minutes. However, other studies have found this to be inaccurate. Thus, there is some debate regarding the distribution of time in a dream corresponding to reality.

It is unknown where in the brain dreams originate — if there is such a single location — or why dreams occur at all. However, there are many competing theories of the neurology of dreams.

During a typical lifetime a person spends about 6 years dreaming[1] (which is about 2 hours each night[2]).

The activation synthesis theory developed by Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley asserts that the sensory experiences are fabricated by the cortex as a means of interpreting random signals from the pons. They propose that in REM sleep, the ascending cholinergic PGO (ponto-geniculo-occipital) waves stimulate higher midbrain and forebrain cortical structures, producing rapid eye movements. The activated forebrain then synthesizes the dream out of this internally generated information. They assume that the same structures that induce REM sleep also generate sensory information.[3] Memory, attention and the other features lacking in the dream state are taken to depend on the neurotransmitters norepinephrine and serotonin, which are present in reduced concentrations during REM sleep. This chemical change is hypothesized to produce a psychotic state, as well as a lack of orientation.

On the other hand, research by Mark Solms suggests that dreams are generated in the forebrain, and that REM sleep and dreaming are not directly related.[4]

Combining Hobson's activation synthesis hypothesis with Solms's findings, the continual-activation theory of dreaming presented by Jie Zhang proposes that dreaming is a result of brain activation and synthesis, and at the same time, dreaming and REM sleep are controlled by different brain mechanisms. The theory is developed through a series of hypotheses. By introducing a temporary memory stage into the memory process, Zhang first proposed that the memory formed during waking time is not saved directly into the long-term memory; instead it is saved into a temporary memory store. He, then, divides brain into two subsidiary systems: the conscious brain and the non-conscious brain. Zhang hypothesizes that the function of sleep is to process, encode and transfer the data from the temporary memory to the long-term memory. NREM sleep processes the conscious related memory (declarative memory); and REM sleep processes the non-conscious related memory (procedural memory). He further hypothesizes that both conscious and non-conscious subsidiary systems of brain have to be continually activated through their life times. When the level of activation of either subsidiary system descends to a given threshold, a continual-activation mechanism will be triggered to maintain brain continual activation. Zhang assumes that during REM sleep, the non-conscious part of brain is busy to process the procedural memory; in the meanwhile, the level of activation in the conscious part of brain will descend to a very low level as the inputs from the sensory are basically disconnected. This will trigger the continual-activation mechanism to generate a data stream from the memory stores to flow through the conscious part of brain. Zhang suggests that this pulse-like brain activation is the inducer of each dream. He proposes that, with the involvement of brain associative thinking system, dreaming is, thereafter, self maintained with dreamer's own thinking until the next pulse of memory insertion. This explains why dreams have both characteristics of continuity (within a dream) and sudden scene changes (between two dreams).[5][6]

Eugen Tarnow suggests that dreams are ever present excitations of the long term memory system, even during waking life — McCarley also observes that when asked to recall their last thought, subjects often reported somewhat hallucinatory thoughts. The strangeness of dreams is then due to long-term memories being stored in "dream format"; this is reminiscent of the Penfield & Rasmussen’s findings that electrical excitations of the cortex give rise to experiences similar to dreams. During waking life an executive function interprets long term memory consistent with reality checking.

The English psychologist Stan Gooch suggests that dreams are a product of the Cerebellum, a part of the brain located at the rear of the cortex. The Cerebellum is a region of the brain that plays an important role in the integration of sensory perception and motor output. It also has its own set of optic fibres, which Gooch proposes as a reason for REM during sleep, in short, that a part of the brain connected to the eyes is still experiencing the dream as an image.

The Problem Solving Theory is another interpretation of the meaning of dreams. This theory explains that a dream solves problems and works out your daily problems in creative ways. The theory does explain that any symbols remembered or seen in the dream are what they are, meaning there is no underlying to them.
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Supernatural interpretations of dreams

Main article: Oneiromancy

The mysterious and often bizarre nature of dreams has led many to interpret dreams as divine gifts or messages, as predictions of the future, or as messages from the past. Alternatively, the idea of the "dream world" as real and the "day world" as imagined is another supernatural interpretation of dreams. Profound dreams believed to have been sent by a deity have led to conversions from one religion to another.

Oneiromancy, prediction of the future through the interpretation of dreams, holds great credence in ancient Judeo-Christianity: in the Tanakh, Jacob, Joseph and Daniel are given the ability to interpret dreams by Yahweh; in the New Testament, divine inspiration comes as a dream to Saint Joseph, the husband of Mary, when the Angel Gabriel spoke to him in a dream and told him that the baby Mary was carrying was Son of God. After the visit of the Three Wise Men to them in Bethlehem, an angel appeared to him and told him to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt for their safety. The angel appeared again in a dream to tell him when it was safe to return to Israel. The story of Saint Patrick and his conversion of the people of Ireland also features dreaming. When Patrick was enslaved in Antrim he was told by God in a dream that there was a boat waiting in Wicklow to bring him back to his homeland. Some years later Patrick dreamt that the Irish were calling him to return and convert them to Christianity.

Western philosophers of a skeptical bent (notably René Descartes) have pointed out that dream experiences are indistinguishable from "real" events from the viewpoint of the dreamer, and so no objective basis exists for determining whether one is dreaming or awake at any given instant. One must, they argue, accept the reality of the waking world on the basis of faith. Lucid dreaming provides a counter-argument to this theory as its practitionaries hold that they are in varying degrees aware of their dreaming state, often completely aware and able to dominate the dream with concious actions.
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Psychodynamic interpretation of dreams

Main article: Dream interpretation

Both Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung identify dreams as an interaction between the unconscious and the conscious. They also assert together that unconscious is the dominant force of the dream, and in dreams it conveys its own mental activity to the perceptive faculty. While Freud felt that there was an active censorship against the unconscious even during sleep, Jung argued that the dream's bizarre quality is an efficient language, comparable to poetry and uniquely capable of revealing the underlying meaning.

Your brain displays images on what your thinking about. Sometimes if u have nightmares that could be because u might have saw a scary movie and that makes an image in your head.

opens pathways to other realities,,,,our souls need more
than this one reality to be satisfied
this is why ppl literaly go insane when not able to sleep
over a long time

Dreams are nothing more than random neurons firing from the brainstem. We dream during REM sleep when our minds are awake while our bodies are paralyzed. They don't have any hidden meaning.

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Why do we Dream when we Sleep ?

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