Even though dreaming is something many humans have and will experience multiple times throughout their lifetime, science still have only scratched the surface of dreaming.The Merriam-Webster dictionary describes dreaming as : “a series of thoughts, images, or emotions occurring during sleep”. While this is true, it is very broad as there are many different types of dreaming that can occur during different levels of alertness. While humans dream for the entire sleep period, the most clear and memorable dreams happen during rapid eye movement, or REM.
As the name states REM is a state of deep sleep where the eyes move very fast. Nightmares are most common during this time. Nightmares are very common, especially in children ages 2-8 because this is when most children start developing fears. Michael Breus, clinical psychologist, states that “the images in nightmares are a mix of memories, recent information you were exposed to, and visual representations of your emotions.
” Your fears are usually what set the theme of your nightmares. A more rare type of dreaming is most commonly known as Lucid dreaming. A Lucid dream is a dream where the person dreaming is aware they are dreaming. In some cases the dreamer can control aspects of the dream like their surroundings and characters. People sell Lucid dreaming pills” that use extracts from plants which increase memory and the ability to recall dreams temporarily.
Even though they are advertised to help with lucid dreaming they can actually cause sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis ,in most cases, is caused when our brains are not traveling through stages of sleep smoothly. It is most often associated with scarier visions and many people report that they see shadowy figures or ghosts during this time.
People who experience this will feel as if they are awake but cannot move or speak. This can last from a few seconds to a few minutes.Some people dreams can predict the future, show them signs, lead them to their desires. While there is no scientific proof that dreams can do any of that, some amazing discoveries and work has come to people in their dreams. In 1816 the first sci-fi book was written, Frankenstein.
Mary Shelley, the author, was inspired by a nightmare she had. She goes into extreme detail about her vivid nightmare describing the environment, characters and machines. Then in 1965 Beatles member Paul McCartney wrote the melody for their song, Yesterday. Once he woke up he went straight to his piano so he wouldn’t forget the melody.
He spent a month talking to people in the music industry asking if they’ve ever heard his melody before. After no one claimed the music Paul and John Lennon started to write lyrics for it. Over 50 years later and his song is still extremely popular with thousands of covers from other artists. Other revolutionary discoveries from dreams include: Niels Bohr and the structure of the atom in 1913, Albert Einstein and the principle of relativity in 1905, Frederick Banting and insulin injections in 1921, and the list goes on.
