The
Facts About Dreams
By Kristyn Kusek LewisDreams may
be more than just random brain patterns. Find out what scientists have
discovered about the personal truths your dreams reveal.
What Is a Dream, Anyway?
A dream is a collection of images and ideas that occur involuntarily
during certain periods of repose. When you first drift off, your heart
rate slows, your temperature drops, and your brain is busy processing
the day’s events. During this initial sleep stage, dreams are made up of
flashes of thoughts and images from your waking life: what you ate for
lunch, a phone call you made during the day, the movie you watched
before bed. You rarely remember these dreams unless you wake up during
them.
After about 90 minutes, you fall into the rapid eye movement (REM) stage
of sleep, where vivid, often surreal dreams occur. The amygdale, the
area of the brain responsible for processing emotions, and the
hippocampus, the seat of memory, are both active, which is why REM
dreams have a story like quality and are the ones you tend to remember
the next day and recount to friends. If you get six to eight hours of
sleep, you experience four to five REM periods of various lengths, all
of which are dream filled (though you probably won’t remember most of
them). |
