By Lylyan Yenson
What are dreams? The answer to that is simple: Dreams are the stories and images that our brains make when we fall asleep. Sometimes they can be funny, romantic, scary, or completely random.
What causes dreams however, isn’t an easy question to answer. There isn’t a simple answer or theory that explains dreams because dreaming is an important part of the biological, cognitive, and psychological realms.
Several current theories suggest:
- Dreams could be a form of memory processing that helps short-term memory turn to long-term memory.
- Dreams reflect the experiences of waking life as an extension of the consciousness.
- Dreaming is a way the brain works through difficult emotions to achieve psychological balance and peace.
- Dreams act as a consciousness that connects the past and present, and prepare for the future.
- Dreams protect the brain by preparing itself to face challenges.
- Dreams represent unconscious wishes.
- Dreams process information that is taken in throughout the day
Different types of dreams include nightmares, recurring dreams and lucid dreams.
Nightmares are horrifying dreams that result in some degree of waking from sleep. There are several triggers that can cause a nightmare including stress, traumatic experiences, emotional difficulties, illnesses or depression and anxiety. Nightmares wake the sleeper, but can also lead them to the fear of falling asleep and returning to the frightening dream.
Night terrors, or sleep terrors, are another form of frightening, dream-like experiences. While they are scary and disruptive to sleep, they aren’t the same as nightmares. Night terrors are episodes of fright during dreams often accompanied by screaming or yelling and physical movements like leaping out of bed or flailing in panic.
Recurring dreams are dreams that reappear with some pattern. Studies suggest that recurring dreams may contain threatening content and that recurring dreams are linked to psychological distress.
Lucid dreaming occurs when the dreamer is aware they are dreaming and may have some control over their dream.
Overall, dreams are influenced by the dreamers’ waking lives in many ways, however, there is no definitive answer about what causes dreams yet, Neurologists are still researching and are able to gather more information with new technologies.
