What do the dreams mean

A study exploring different types of memory within dream content among 32 participants found the following:. Researchers suggest that memories of personal experiences are experienced fragmentarily and selectively during dreaming. The purpose may be to integrate these memories into the long-lasting autobiographical memory. A hypothesis stating that dreams reflect waking-life experiences is supported by studies investigating the dreams of psychiatric patients and patients with sleep disorders.

In short, their daytime symptoms and problems are reflected in their dreams. Many authors agree that some traumatic dreams perform a function of recovery. One paper hypothesizes that the main aspect of traumatic dreams is to communicate an experience that the dreamer has in the dream but does not understand.

This can help an individual reconstruct and come to terms with past trauma. The themes of dreams can be linked to the suppression of unwanted thoughts and, as a result, an increased occurrence of that suppressed thought in dreams.

The results demonstrate that there were increased dreams about the unwanted thought and a tendency to have more distressing dreams. They also imply that thought suppression may lead to significantly increased mental disorder symptoms. Research has indicated that external stimuli presented during sleep can affect the emotional content of dreams. For example, the positively-toned stimulus of roses in one study yielded more positively themed dreams, whereas the negative stimulus of rotten eggs was followed by more negatively themed dreams.

Up to now, the frequencies of typical dream themes have been studied with questionnaires. These have indicated that a rank order of 55 typical dream themes has been stable over different sample populations. Some themes are familiar to many people, such as flying, falling, and arriving late.

For example, from to , there was an increase in the percentage of people who reported flying in dreams. This could reflect the increase in air travel. Relationships : Some have hypothesized that one cluster of typical dreams, including being an object in danger, falling, or being chased, is related to interpersonal conflicts.

Sexual concepts : Another cluster that includes flying, sexual experiences, finding money, and eating delicious food is associated with libidinal and sexual motivations. Fear of embarrassment : A third group, containing dreams that involve being nude, failing an examination, arriving too late, losing teeth, and being inappropriately dressed, is associated with social concerns and a fear of embarrassment.

In neuroimaging studies of brain activity during REM sleep, scientists found that the distribution of brain activity might also be linked to specific dream features. Several bizarre features of normal dreams have similarities with well-known neuropsychological syndromes that occur after brain damage, such as delusional misidentifications for faces and places. Dreams were evaluated in people experiencing different types of headache.

Results showed people with migraine had increased frequency of dreams involving taste and smell. This may suggest that the role of some cerebral structures, such as amygdala and hypothalamus, are involved in migraine mechanisms as well as in the biology of sleep and dreaming. Music in dreams is rarely studied in scientific literature. However, in a study of 35 professional musicians and 30 non-musicians, the musicians experienced twice as many dreams featuring music, when compared with non-musicians.

Musical dream frequency was related to the age of commencement of musical instruction but not to the daily load of musical activity. Nearly half of the recalled music was non-standard, suggesting that original music can be created in dreams. It has been shown that realistic, localized painful sensations can be experienced in dreams, either through direct incorporation or from memories of pain. However, the frequency of pain dreams in healthy subjects is low. In one study, 28 non-ventilated burn victims were interviewed for 5 consecutive mornings during their first week of hospitalization.

Results showed :. More than half did not report pain dreams. However, these results could suggest that pain dreams occur at a greater frequency in populations currently experiencing pain than in normal volunteers. One study has linked frontotemporal gamma EEG activity to conscious awareness in dreams.

The study found that current stimulation in the lower gamma band during REM sleep influences on-going brain activity and induces self-reflective awareness in dreams. Researchers concluded that higher order consciousness is related to oscillations around 25 and 40 Hz.

Recent research has demonstrated parallels between styles of romantic attachment and general dream content. Assessment results from 61 student participants in committed dating relationships of six months duration or longer revealed a significant association between relationship-specific attachment security and the degree to which dreams about romantic partners followed.

The findings illuminate our understanding of mental representations with regards to specific attachment figures. Researchers compared the dream content of different groups of people in a psychiatric facility. Participants in one group had been admitted after attempting to take their own lives. Their dreams of this group were compared with those of three control groups in the facility who had experienced:. To put it simply, "Dreams are thoughts, images, sensations and sometimes sounds that occur during sleep," Alan Kuras , a licensed clinical social worker at Westmed Medical Group , tells CNET.

There's no definitive evidence about what dreams consist of, but it's generally accepted that dreams represent a collection of thoughts, struggles, emotions, events, people, places and symbols that are relevant to the dreamer in some way. The most vivid dreams typically occur during REM sleep , although you can dream during other stages of sleep, too. There are many theories of the function of dreams, Kuras says. While scientists know a great deal about what happens physiologically when people dream , there's still much to be studied about what happens psychologically.

For example, researchers know that people with post-traumatic stress disorder are likely to have nightmares. But people without PTSD have nightmares, too, so it can't be said that nightmares always accompany psychological conditions. One concept that's generally accepted is that dreaming is a highly emotional process , because the amygdala -- an emotional center in your brain -- is one of the areas of your brain that's most active during dreams, according to neuroimaging studies.

Part of this is biological, Kuras says, as neurotransmitters forming memory are less active during sleep, and dream forgetfulness also appears to be related to the level of electrical activity in the brain during dreams.

Additionally, it could have something to do with the content of your dreams, Kuras says: Early psychoanalytic theory suggested that difficult or traumatic information in dreams is suppressed, and the dreamer is less likely to retrieve or analyze it. Meir Kryger , a sleep medicine doctor at Yale Medicine, tells CNET that most people remember their dreams when they're awakened in the middle of a dream or in the first few moments after a dream has ended.

But the catch is that the memory only lasts for a short time -- unless you write it down or repeat it in your head over and over, there's a good chance you'll forget the dream. It's actually likely that it's more common to forget dreams than it is to remember them, Dr. Kryger says. When you wake up also matters.

Research has shown that people who wake up during REM sleep report more vivid, detailed dreams, whereas people who wake up during non-REM sleep report fewer dreams, no dreams or dreams of little significance. Dream meanings are mostly speculation, but what matters is how your dreams relate to your own life. Different cultures throughout history have ascribed meaning and importance to dreams, though there's little scientific evidence that dreams have particular meanings attached to them, Kuras says, "No one has yet determined with exactitude what dreams or the images in dreams mean.

That dreams are significant indicators of one's subconscious mind is a basic assumption in various cultures, but in different ways. The interpretation: " Dreams of falling can be associated with feeling out of control or overwhelmed. They may also relate to feeling unsupported and insecure," says Braun. If you dream of falling due to the floor coming out from under you, or a different variation, it can also be interpreted differently.

Even though there may be a general interpretation of falling, what is most important are the particulars for the person dreaming," adds Braun. He or she will have very different associations to the details of the dream. Another may think of 'falling from grace. Dreams of falling can be associated with feeling out of control or overwhelmed.

They may also relate to feeling unsupported and insecure. The interpretation: "This may not just be a dream, but may be the result of sleep paralysis," explains Braun. Physiologically, we are paralyzed during REM sleep to prevent our bodies from acting or moving while we dream.

People who experience sleep paralysis usually wake up before the REM cycle is complete. This space between sleep and waking can be experienced as a dream. It can also be experienced in the waking state as being unable to move, talk, and, in some cases, breathe. The dreamer is self-aware during lucid dreaming. Sometimes, dreams can implant a creative thought, thus giving the dreamer a sense of inspiration.

Throughout cultures and time, opinions have varied and shifted about the meaning of dreams. It seems that people generally endorse the Freudian theory of dreams, and that is that dreams reveal hidden emotions and desires. Other theories are that dreams help us in problem solving, in memory formation, or that they occur simply due to random brain activation. In this case, acting out dreams can be dangerous to the individual and bed partner. Going back around years ago in Mesopotamia, the earliest recorded dreams were documented on clay tablets.

In the Roman and Greek periods, people believed that dreams were messages sent directly from one or more deities, from deceased people, and that they were the predictors of the future.

Then there were cultures that practiced dream incubation, their intention being to cultivate dreams of prophecy. In the early s, Sigmund Freud wrote extensively about the theory of dreams and their interpretations.

Freud believed that dreams are a manifestation of our deepest anxieties and desires, often relating to repressed childhood obsessions or memories. In addition, it was his belief that almost every dream topic, irrespective of its content, represented the release of sexual tension. What does it mean to dream about a tall black figure in a white mask in a purple kimono and has a purple handkerchief on his black hair in a bun? So pardon the extra descriptive?

Yet almost every night I keep having a mostly random dream about a seemingly random experience of my past back west in Tampa usually a good experience; high school graduation, playing a keyboard or two at GuitarCenter or at one odd point fictitiously hosting a gameshow.