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The Science Behind Dreaming
26 July 2011 | https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-science-behind-dreaming/
New research sheds light on how and why we remember dreams--and what purpose they are likely to serve
Credit: Getty Images
For centuries people have pondered the meaning of dreams. Early civilizations thought of dreams as a medium between our earthly world and that of the gods. In fact, the Greeks and Romans were convinced that dreams had certain prophetic powers. While there has always been a great interest in the interpretation of human dreams, it wasn’t until the end of the nineteenth century that Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung put forth some of the most widely-known modern theories of dreaming. Freud’s theory centred around the notion of repressed longing -- the idea that dreaming allows us to sort through unresolved, repressed wishes. Carl Jung (who studied under Freud) also believed that dreams had psychological importance, but proposed different theories about their meaning.
Since then, technological advancements have allowed for the development of other theories. One prominent neurobiological theory of dreaming is the “activation-synthesis hypothesis,” which states that dreams don’t actually mean anything: they are merely electrical brain impulses that pull random thoughts and imagery from our memories. Humans, the theory goes, construct dream stories after they wake up, in a natural attempt to make sense of it all. Yet, given the vast documentation of realistic aspects to human dreaming as well as indirect experimental evidence that other mammals such as cats also dream, evolutionary psychologists have theorized that dreaming really does serve a purpose. In particular, the “threat simulation theory” suggests that dreaming should be seen as an ancient biological defence mechanism that provided an evolutionary advantage because of its capacity to repeatedly simulate potential threatening events – enhancing the neuro-cognitive mechanisms required for efficient threat perception and avoidance.
So, over the years, numerous theories have been put forth in an attempt to illuminate the mystery behind human dreams, but, until recently, strong tangible evidence has remained largely elusive.
Yet, new research published in the Journal of Neuroscience provides compelling insights into the mechanisms that underlie dreaming and the strong relationship our dreams have with our memories. Cristina Marzano and her colleagues at the University of Rome have succeeded, for the first time, in explaining how humans remember their dreams. The scientists predicted the likelihood of successful dream recall based on a signature pattern of brain waves. In order to do this, the Italian research team invited 65 students to spend two consecutive nights in their research laboratory.
During the first night, the students were left to sleep, allowing them to get used to the sound-proofed and temperature-controlled rooms. During the second night the researchers measured the student’s brain waves while they slept. Our brain experiences four types of electrical brain waves: “delta,” “theta,” “alpha,” and “beta.” Each represents a different speed of oscillating electrical voltages and together they form the electroencephalography (EEG). The Italian research team used this technology to measure the participant’s brain waves during various sleep-stages. (There are five stages of sleep; most dreaming and our most intense dreams occur during the REM stage.) The students were woken at various times and asked to fill out a diary detailing whether or not they dreamt, how often they dreamt and whether they could remember the content of their dreams.
While previous studies have already indicated that people are more likely to remember their dreams when woken directly after REM sleep, the current study explains why. Those participants who exhibited more low frequency theta waves in the frontal lobes were also more likely to remember their dreams.
This finding is interesting because the increased frontal theta activity the researchers observed looks just like the successful encoding and retrieval of autobiographical memories seen while we are awake. That is, it is the same electrical oscillations in the frontal cortex that make the recollection of episodic memories (e.g., things that happened to you) possible. Thus, these findings suggest that the neurophysiological mechanisms that we employ while dreaming (and recalling dreams) are the same as when we construct and retrieve memories while we are awake.
In another recent study conducted by the same research team, the authors used the latest MRI techniques to investigate the relation between dreaming and the role of deep-brain structures. In their study, the researchers found that vivid, bizarre and emotionally intense dreams (the dreams that people usually remember) are linked to parts of the amygdala and hippocampus. While the amygdala plays a primary role in the processing and memory of emotional reactions, the hippocampus has been implicated in important memory functions, such as the consolidation of information from short-term to long-term memory.
The proposed link between our dreams and emotions is also highlighted in another recent study published by Matthew Walker and colleagues at the Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab at UC Berkeley, who found that a reduction in REM sleep (or less “dreaming”) influences our ability to understand complex emotions in daily life – an essential feature of human social functioning. Scientists have also recently identified where dreaming is likely to occur in the brain. A very rare clinical condition known as “Charcot-Wilbrand Syndrome” has been known to cause (among other neurological symptoms) loss of the ability to dream. However, it was not until a few years ago that a patient reported to have lost her ability to dream while having virtually no other permanent neurological symptoms. The patient suffered a lesion in a part of the brain known as the right inferior lingual gyrus (located in the visual cortex). Thus, we know that dreams are generated in, or transmitted through this particular area of the brain, which is associated with visual processing, emotion and visual memories.
Taken together, these recent findings tell an important story about the underlying mechanism and possible purpose of dreaming.
Dreams seem to help us process emotions by encoding and constructing memories of them. What we see and experience in our dreams might not necessarily be real, but the emotions attached to these experiences certainly are. Our dream stories essentially try to strip the emotion out of a certain experience by creating a memory of it. This way, the emotion itself is no longer active. This mechanism fulfils an important role because when we don’t process our emotions, especially negative ones, this increases personal worry and anxiety. In fact, severe REM sleep-deprivation is increasingly correlated to the development of mental disorders. In short, dreams help regulate traffic on that fragile bridge which connects our experiences with our emotions and memories.
‘When we dream, we have the perfect chemical canvas for intense visions’
14 April 2019 | https://www.theguardian.com/science...t-canvas-intense-visions-alice-robb-interview
US journalist Alice Robb, author of a new book about the science and life-changing potential of dreams, talks about her research
Alice Robb photographed by Antonio Olmos for the Observer New Review.
Alice Robb is an American science journalist who has written for the Washington Post and the New Republic. Her new book, Why We Dream, encourages us to rethink the importance of dreams and to become dream interpreters ourselves.
Writing a book about dreams turned you into a “magnet for confessions”. Why are people compelled to talk about dreams?
It is a natural impulse because dreams are emotional, affect moods, feel profound. What is unusual is that we live in a culture where we’re expected to forget our dreams. We have this cliche that it is boring to talk about dreams.
Between 1970 and 2000 you note that no research about dreaming was published in the top US journal, Science. Is that because it was looked down upon as a topic or the technical challenges involved in studying it?
For most of the 20th century, researchers who wanted to study dreams had to rely on people’s descriptions of them – not the most perfect form of evidence. It didn’t help that psychologists were trying very hard to have their discipline seen as a “real” science; they were trying to distance themselves from Freud, who had put dreams at the centre of psychoanalysis.
I think this is a case of technological advances enabling a shift in attitude. Once scientists saw that it was possible to study dreams with neuroimaging, they were able to start asking questions about what’s going on in the brain when we dream. There were a couple of big breakthroughs in the 1990s and early 2000s that helped make dreams a valid topic of scientific inquiry. Neuroscientist Matt Wilson discovered that rats’ brains kept working as they slept, replaying a maze they had run through during the day. And Robert Stickgold, a psychiatrist at Harvard, found that people who played Tetris in the lab would dream of the game at night.
What is your prescription for those of us who do not remember our dreams?
Believe your dreams have value and tell yourself before bed you want to remember them. Keep a dream journal, which does not have to be a pen and paper – you could speak your dream into a phone in the morning – plenty of apps help with that. But get into a habit, set things up the night before to reinforce your goal. Sound sleepers who conk out at midnight and wake at eight are less likely to remember their dreams. But they get other benefits so I don’t feel so sorry for them. If you wake in the middle of the night, you’ll have more opportunities to remember. Jot down a couple of points. Integrate dreams into your daily life. Talk about them – if you can find someone to listen. Read about dreams or reflect on an image that comes from a dream during the day – just don’t dismiss them.
Have you ever taken a decision based on a dream?
I have – in relationships – but I’m not sure I’d want the details in the Observer!
Coloured MRI scans of the human brain. Photograph: Simon Frazer/SPL/Getty Images
What is ‘lucid dreaming’?
In lucid dreams, you become aware you’re dreaming. You can take control of the plot. They can be anything from a brief moment where you’re in a nightmare and tell yourself: “this is a dream” and wake up. That experience is fairly common. But there are also people who lucid dream constantly. People dream so differently. I’ve had people ask: “Are there people who can’t control their dreams?” Some learn to lucid dream and unlock different layers. It is extremely cool and mind-bending when it happens to you – an alternate reality that feels real. It is no mystery that people become obsessed with it.
Recently there’s been a massive interest in the science of sleep. Sleep plays a role in maintaining our mental health. Are dreams part of that process?
Dreams play a big role in helping us cope with stress, grief and trauma. Most of our dreams are actually unpleasant: the most common emotions in dreams include fear, guilt, anxiety and helplessness. Dreams are an opportunity to work through things that frighten us in real life, to play out worst-case scenarios in an environment where they have no consequences. Changes in sleep and dreaming might even aggravate mood disorders: depression is associated with a drop in dream recall. In one study, women who dreamed about their exes while going through a divorce were more likely to feel they had got over the break-up a year later. People who are in mourning often have vivid dreams about the person who has died, and say these dreams help them accept the loss.
Where do you place yourself on the spectrum spanning Freud and his interpretation of dreams and Hobson, who believed dreams were ‘just the product of biology’?
I don’t think these ideas are mutually exclusive. You can say dreams have a biological cause and an emotional impact. Hobson kept a dream journal and found meaning in his dreams. But Freud plays a complicated role. He is absolutely right that dreams reveal our subconscious and sometimes show our desires but the idea that dreams were always about sex – I definitely don’t agree with that and think it is because that idea took hold that people are still embarrassed to talk about their dreams. Several studies show that a surprisingly small proportion of our dreams have sexual content, although this differs from person to person.
You say neglecting to consider our dreams is like “throwing away a gift from our brains without bothering to open it.” What is the gift?
When we’re dreaming, we’re thinking in a state we never have access to by day. Dreams offer the opportunity to think in a different way and show new answers to problems, they often contain the seeds of something important. They show us blind spots, help us home in on things we might be neglecting in our personal lives. For me, dreams inspire awe, make me appreciate my brain and enjoy sleep more. I’m more excited to go to sleep now I can remember my dreams.
26 July 2011 | https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-science-behind-dreaming/
New research sheds light on how and why we remember dreams--and what purpose they are likely to serve
Credit: Getty Images
For centuries people have pondered the meaning of dreams. Early civilizations thought of dreams as a medium between our earthly world and that of the gods. In fact, the Greeks and Romans were convinced that dreams had certain prophetic powers. While there has always been a great interest in the interpretation of human dreams, it wasn’t until the end of the nineteenth century that Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung put forth some of the most widely-known modern theories of dreaming. Freud’s theory centred around the notion of repressed longing -- the idea that dreaming allows us to sort through unresolved, repressed wishes. Carl Jung (who studied under Freud) also believed that dreams had psychological importance, but proposed different theories about their meaning.
Since then, technological advancements have allowed for the development of other theories. One prominent neurobiological theory of dreaming is the “activation-synthesis hypothesis,” which states that dreams don’t actually mean anything: they are merely electrical brain impulses that pull random thoughts and imagery from our memories. Humans, the theory goes, construct dream stories after they wake up, in a natural attempt to make sense of it all. Yet, given the vast documentation of realistic aspects to human dreaming as well as indirect experimental evidence that other mammals such as cats also dream, evolutionary psychologists have theorized that dreaming really does serve a purpose. In particular, the “threat simulation theory” suggests that dreaming should be seen as an ancient biological defence mechanism that provided an evolutionary advantage because of its capacity to repeatedly simulate potential threatening events – enhancing the neuro-cognitive mechanisms required for efficient threat perception and avoidance.
So, over the years, numerous theories have been put forth in an attempt to illuminate the mystery behind human dreams, but, until recently, strong tangible evidence has remained largely elusive.
Yet, new research published in the Journal of Neuroscience provides compelling insights into the mechanisms that underlie dreaming and the strong relationship our dreams have with our memories. Cristina Marzano and her colleagues at the University of Rome have succeeded, for the first time, in explaining how humans remember their dreams. The scientists predicted the likelihood of successful dream recall based on a signature pattern of brain waves. In order to do this, the Italian research team invited 65 students to spend two consecutive nights in their research laboratory.
During the first night, the students were left to sleep, allowing them to get used to the sound-proofed and temperature-controlled rooms. During the second night the researchers measured the student’s brain waves while they slept. Our brain experiences four types of electrical brain waves: “delta,” “theta,” “alpha,” and “beta.” Each represents a different speed of oscillating electrical voltages and together they form the electroencephalography (EEG). The Italian research team used this technology to measure the participant’s brain waves during various sleep-stages. (There are five stages of sleep; most dreaming and our most intense dreams occur during the REM stage.) The students were woken at various times and asked to fill out a diary detailing whether or not they dreamt, how often they dreamt and whether they could remember the content of their dreams.
While previous studies have already indicated that people are more likely to remember their dreams when woken directly after REM sleep, the current study explains why. Those participants who exhibited more low frequency theta waves in the frontal lobes were also more likely to remember their dreams.
This finding is interesting because the increased frontal theta activity the researchers observed looks just like the successful encoding and retrieval of autobiographical memories seen while we are awake. That is, it is the same electrical oscillations in the frontal cortex that make the recollection of episodic memories (e.g., things that happened to you) possible. Thus, these findings suggest that the neurophysiological mechanisms that we employ while dreaming (and recalling dreams) are the same as when we construct and retrieve memories while we are awake.
In another recent study conducted by the same research team, the authors used the latest MRI techniques to investigate the relation between dreaming and the role of deep-brain structures. In their study, the researchers found that vivid, bizarre and emotionally intense dreams (the dreams that people usually remember) are linked to parts of the amygdala and hippocampus. While the amygdala plays a primary role in the processing and memory of emotional reactions, the hippocampus has been implicated in important memory functions, such as the consolidation of information from short-term to long-term memory.
The proposed link between our dreams and emotions is also highlighted in another recent study published by Matthew Walker and colleagues at the Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab at UC Berkeley, who found that a reduction in REM sleep (or less “dreaming”) influences our ability to understand complex emotions in daily life – an essential feature of human social functioning. Scientists have also recently identified where dreaming is likely to occur in the brain. A very rare clinical condition known as “Charcot-Wilbrand Syndrome” has been known to cause (among other neurological symptoms) loss of the ability to dream. However, it was not until a few years ago that a patient reported to have lost her ability to dream while having virtually no other permanent neurological symptoms. The patient suffered a lesion in a part of the brain known as the right inferior lingual gyrus (located in the visual cortex). Thus, we know that dreams are generated in, or transmitted through this particular area of the brain, which is associated with visual processing, emotion and visual memories.
Taken together, these recent findings tell an important story about the underlying mechanism and possible purpose of dreaming.
Dreams seem to help us process emotions by encoding and constructing memories of them. What we see and experience in our dreams might not necessarily be real, but the emotions attached to these experiences certainly are. Our dream stories essentially try to strip the emotion out of a certain experience by creating a memory of it. This way, the emotion itself is no longer active. This mechanism fulfils an important role because when we don’t process our emotions, especially negative ones, this increases personal worry and anxiety. In fact, severe REM sleep-deprivation is increasingly correlated to the development of mental disorders. In short, dreams help regulate traffic on that fragile bridge which connects our experiences with our emotions and memories.
‘When we dream, we have the perfect chemical canvas for intense visions’
14 April 2019 | https://www.theguardian.com/science...t-canvas-intense-visions-alice-robb-interview
US journalist Alice Robb, author of a new book about the science and life-changing potential of dreams, talks about her research
Alice Robb photographed by Antonio Olmos for the Observer New Review.
Alice Robb is an American science journalist who has written for the Washington Post and the New Republic. Her new book, Why We Dream, encourages us to rethink the importance of dreams and to become dream interpreters ourselves.
Writing a book about dreams turned you into a “magnet for confessions”. Why are people compelled to talk about dreams?
It is a natural impulse because dreams are emotional, affect moods, feel profound. What is unusual is that we live in a culture where we’re expected to forget our dreams. We have this cliche that it is boring to talk about dreams.
Between 1970 and 2000 you note that no research about dreaming was published in the top US journal, Science. Is that because it was looked down upon as a topic or the technical challenges involved in studying it?
For most of the 20th century, researchers who wanted to study dreams had to rely on people’s descriptions of them – not the most perfect form of evidence. It didn’t help that psychologists were trying very hard to have their discipline seen as a “real” science; they were trying to distance themselves from Freud, who had put dreams at the centre of psychoanalysis.
I think this is a case of technological advances enabling a shift in attitude. Once scientists saw that it was possible to study dreams with neuroimaging, they were able to start asking questions about what’s going on in the brain when we dream. There were a couple of big breakthroughs in the 1990s and early 2000s that helped make dreams a valid topic of scientific inquiry. Neuroscientist Matt Wilson discovered that rats’ brains kept working as they slept, replaying a maze they had run through during the day. And Robert Stickgold, a psychiatrist at Harvard, found that people who played Tetris in the lab would dream of the game at night.
What is your prescription for those of us who do not remember our dreams?
Believe your dreams have value and tell yourself before bed you want to remember them. Keep a dream journal, which does not have to be a pen and paper – you could speak your dream into a phone in the morning – plenty of apps help with that. But get into a habit, set things up the night before to reinforce your goal. Sound sleepers who conk out at midnight and wake at eight are less likely to remember their dreams. But they get other benefits so I don’t feel so sorry for them. If you wake in the middle of the night, you’ll have more opportunities to remember. Jot down a couple of points. Integrate dreams into your daily life. Talk about them – if you can find someone to listen. Read about dreams or reflect on an image that comes from a dream during the day – just don’t dismiss them.
Have you ever taken a decision based on a dream?
I have – in relationships – but I’m not sure I’d want the details in the Observer!
Coloured MRI scans of the human brain. Photograph: Simon Frazer/SPL/Getty Images
What is ‘lucid dreaming’?
In lucid dreams, you become aware you’re dreaming. You can take control of the plot. They can be anything from a brief moment where you’re in a nightmare and tell yourself: “this is a dream” and wake up. That experience is fairly common. But there are also people who lucid dream constantly. People dream so differently. I’ve had people ask: “Are there people who can’t control their dreams?” Some learn to lucid dream and unlock different layers. It is extremely cool and mind-bending when it happens to you – an alternate reality that feels real. It is no mystery that people become obsessed with it.
Recently there’s been a massive interest in the science of sleep. Sleep plays a role in maintaining our mental health. Are dreams part of that process?
Dreams play a big role in helping us cope with stress, grief and trauma. Most of our dreams are actually unpleasant: the most common emotions in dreams include fear, guilt, anxiety and helplessness. Dreams are an opportunity to work through things that frighten us in real life, to play out worst-case scenarios in an environment where they have no consequences. Changes in sleep and dreaming might even aggravate mood disorders: depression is associated with a drop in dream recall. In one study, women who dreamed about their exes while going through a divorce were more likely to feel they had got over the break-up a year later. People who are in mourning often have vivid dreams about the person who has died, and say these dreams help them accept the loss.
Where do you place yourself on the spectrum spanning Freud and his interpretation of dreams and Hobson, who believed dreams were ‘just the product of biology’?
I don’t think these ideas are mutually exclusive. You can say dreams have a biological cause and an emotional impact. Hobson kept a dream journal and found meaning in his dreams. But Freud plays a complicated role. He is absolutely right that dreams reveal our subconscious and sometimes show our desires but the idea that dreams were always about sex – I definitely don’t agree with that and think it is because that idea took hold that people are still embarrassed to talk about their dreams. Several studies show that a surprisingly small proportion of our dreams have sexual content, although this differs from person to person.
You say neglecting to consider our dreams is like “throwing away a gift from our brains without bothering to open it.” What is the gift?
When we’re dreaming, we’re thinking in a state we never have access to by day. Dreams offer the opportunity to think in a different way and show new answers to problems, they often contain the seeds of something important. They show us blind spots, help us home in on things we might be neglecting in our personal lives. For me, dreams inspire awe, make me appreciate my brain and enjoy sleep more. I’m more excited to go to sleep now I can remember my dreams.
