The Mystery of Dreams

Essay WHY DO WE DREAM.

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The mystery of dreams.

One of the most frequently asked questions are “why we do we dream?’’, “what do dreams mean?’’ and so on. Biologically and phisologically speaking all this has a reason to be. Even though there is no explanation of why this happens or why those dreams don't always make sense to us scientists such as Sigmund Freud claimed there was one and that hasn't stopped other scientists from coming up with some fascinating hypotheses. Dreams are an important phase of our day since they can also work as a garbage collection or as Freud described, wish fulfillment.

We always dream, but not everyone remembers. Sleep occurs in five different stages. There is the first stage which is the light sleep that is easy to wake up from. The second stage goes slightly deeper,. The third and fourth stages represent deeper sleep. After the fourth stage, we reach one final stage known as REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. During this stage our breathing quickens, heart rate increases, brain activity is at the same level as when we’re awake or even higher and blood pressure rises. This is also the stage where the dreams we remember tend to take place. Sometimes, at this stage, our muscles become temporarily paralyzed, but it is nothing to be afraid of, since it is a way to keep yourself safe while you’re asleep. It is when you start dreaming about being a ninja or a superhero fighting against the villain, if your muscles were not paralyzed, you would be acting out your dream. However, from the biological view Dr. Maurice said "Without REM, our corneas would starve and suffocate while we are asleep with our eyes closed."

Dreams represent unconscious desires, Sigmund Froid said. He believed that dreams were meaningful and helped people act out things they can’t do when they’re awake. Any dream, even nightmares, can be looked at as a way of getting something that you want. Freud distinguished between the manifest content of a dream, which is what the dreamer remembers, and the latent content, the symbolic meaning of the dream. To explain his theory Freud uses his own and patient’s dreams. For example: one of his patients once dreamt she had been struggling a dog and Sigmund Freud took this as a way of saying what she really wanted to do was to kill her sister-in-law, since both of them had been having issues in their relationship. Freud interpreted dreams as wish-fulfillment.

One theory suggests that dreams are the result of our brains trying to interpret external noises during sleep. For example, the sound of the radio may be incorporated into the content of a dream. This happens because the mind tries to balance incorporating stimulus with keeping consistent experience.

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