We fly, climb the highest peaks, experience the most incredible things.
We humans have always been fascinated by our nightly cinema and try to interpret and explain the recurring images. We're talking about our dreams, of course. In this article we would like to give you a little more insight into what they are all about and what we know about them.
Why we dream
Dreams have preoccupied us humans for as long as we can remember. There are many different theories about what they mean, how, where and, above all, why they arise. The most famous thesis probably comes from the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. He believed that dreams express our subconscious longings and desires. For a long time, popular belief held that dreams were supernatural messages from gods and demons, or that they could be used to predict the future. The fact is: you don't really know for sure. Whether and what function dreams have has not yet been precisely clarified. What is certain, however, is that our brain stores information from the day while we sleep and links it with older memories. From a neurophysiological point of view, dreams are an extremely important mechanism for the body. Our brain, especially the nerve cells, use the period of sleep to recover. They are switched off while dreaming, which also explains why we accept contradictory or strange circumstances in dreams as completely normal and do not question them critically. Another possible explanation is that dreaming is important for our brain development and maturation.
The stages of sleep
Not all sleep is the same. During our night's sleep we go through different sleep phases. A distinction is made between a total of four stages, which we go through several times during the night. A cycle with all four phases takes around 90 minutes. Every night we experience around five to seven such cycles. The first stage is the falling asleep stage. We become more tired and slowly doze off. Next comes normal or stable sleep, in which the heartbeat calms down a little. The so-called deep sleep phase is important for physical recovery; here the muscles remain slightly tense. The fourth and final phase is REM sleep. This stands for “Rapid Eye Movements”. In this stage we are most difficult to wake up, the body is maximally relaxed, but our brain is highly active. Here, in contrast to the other sections, we dream particularly emotionally. But dreams occur in all phases of sleep.
Do we dream every night?
It's pretty certain that we dream every night. If we think we have had a dreamless sleep, it is probably because we have already forgotten the dream. This happens very often – and very quickly. According to one hypothesis, the brain needs up to 15 minutes after waking up to reach its full potential. It is assumed that our memory only works to a limited extent during this phase and therefore has only a limited ability to store dreams in the long term. A dream diary can help here, in which you write down what you dreamed immediately after waking up.