Reports of dreams tend to be full of emotional and vivid experiences that contain themes, concerns, dream figures, and objects that correspond closely to waking life. However, psychoanalysis concentrates on the meaning of dreams and placing them in the context of relationships in the history of the dreamer. Neuroscientists are interested in the structures involved in dream production, dream organization, and narratability. There are significant differences between the neuroscientific and psychoanalytic approaches to dream analysis. There is no cognitive state that has been as extensively studied and yet as frequently misunderstood as dreaming. The dreamer has reduced control over the content, visual images and activation of the memory. Neuroscience offers explanations linked to the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep as a likely candidate for the cause of dreaming.ĭreams are a universal human experience that can be described as a state of consciousness characterized by sensory, cognitive and emotional occurrences during sleep. This stage accounts for 20 to 25 percent of total sleep time. When people awaken during REM sleep, they often describe bizarre and illogical tales. Heart rate increases, blood pressure rises, and males develop penile erections. Breathing becomes more rapid, irregular, and shallow, eyes jerk rapidly in various directions, and limb muscles become temporarily paralyzed. Stage 5: This stage is known as rapid eye movement ( REM). This forms 12 to 15 percent of total sleep. People awakened while in deep sleep do not adjust immediately and often feel disoriented for several minutes after waking up. It is difficult to wake someone during stages 3 and 4, which together are called “deep sleep.” There is no eye movement or muscle activity. Stage 4: The brain produces delta waves almost exclusively. This accounts for 4 to 6 percent of total sleep. Stage 3: Extremely slow brain waves called delta waves begin to appear, interspersed with smaller, faster waves. This stage forms 45 to 55 percent of total sleep.

Stage 2: Eye movement stops and brain waves become slower, with occasional bursts of rapid waves called sleep spindles. This stage forms 4 to 5 percent of total sleep. Stage 1: Light sleep, slow eye movement, and reduced muscle activity. There are five phases of sleep in a sleep cycle: Phases of sleepĭreams most likely happen during REM sleep. They are by nature difficult to study in a laboratory, but technology and new research techniques may help improve our understanding of dreams.

a psychological space where overwhelming, contradictory, or highly complex notions can be brought together by the dreaming ego, notions that would be unsettling while awake, serving the need for psychological balance and equilibrium.

a unique state of consciousness that incorporates experience of the present, processing of the past, and preparation for the future.

reflecting unconscious mental function in a psychoanalytic way.cognitive simulation of real life experiences, as dreaming is a subsystem of the waking default network, the part of the mind active during daydreaming.offline memory reprocessing, in which the brain consolidates learning and memory tasks and supports and records waking consciousness.consolidating and processing information gathered during the dayįrom evidence and new research methodologies, researchers have speculated that dreaming serves the following functions:.interpreting random signals from the brain and body during sleep.representing unconscious desires and wishes.Are dreams merely part of the sleep cycle, or do they serve some other purpose? There are several theories about why we dream. Dreams: Do they represent our unconsious desires?

Making memories of us meaning