The Secrets Of Dreams

Human has explored from beneath the deep blue seas to outer space beyond the twinkling stars, but what I find flabbergasting is that we do not even know exactly what goes on within ourselves. The chances are that you often find yourself in a fix over the mystical contents of a dream. Have you ever wondered why dreams are so weird? Maybe you wondered why we dream at all. Well, the truth is, no one actually knows for sure "why". Doctors, philosophers, and scientists have many theories but there is no exact conclusion.

Unless someone has the extreme cases of psychological disorder, they dream. Every human being dreams, they can be vague or extremely vivid. Dreams happen during the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep. REM begins at deep sleep. Pons is an area of the brain shuts off signals to the spinal cord causing the body to become nonmotile during the REM sleep. Pons is also the area REM sleep signals originate. If the pons doesn’t shut down the signals to the spinal cord, people will act out what they are dreaming about. That is very dangerous as it can lead to running into the wall, or falling down the stairs or worse. This condition is rare

from

sleepwalking and is called “REM sleep behavior disorder.”

As dusk falls, and darkens the sky, you feel that familiar sensation of drowsiness embracing you. This is the best part of the day, when you finally turn off the lights and retire to a soft, cozy bed from a hard day’s work, thinking that you can finally let your body have a rest. But that’s where you go wrong. The brain is still working; in fact it is becoming more active compared to when you are awake. This is because you are dreaming.

Many people dream the same types of dreams! Here are some common dreams:

•Falling dreams- you feel that you are falling and suddenly your whole body jerks and awakens you. These dreams occur when you feel insecure, unstable or anxious in

your conscious life. Falling dreams reveal your sense of failure in some situation or a loss of your status. •Chase dreams – You dream that someone is chasing you and you are running away from the pursuer who wants to attack or seems threatening in some way. These dreams reflect your response when confronting fears, dealing with stress or any tight situation. It shows that you are trying to escape from your problems. During a dream like this you should try to make yourself stop and face whatever you are running from. This can help you to get over problems in real life.

•Sleep paralysis- Sometimes you dream that you are running away or trying to hit a person but suddenly your body feels like lead and you find that you can’t even move a limb. This is a paralysis that occurs to prevent you from physically acting out your dreams. And there are situations where you scream but no sound seems to come out. This sudden slow motion shows that you must be mindful to re-think over your actions in real life.

Have you ever wondered if blind people dream the way we do? Well, if people become blind after birth, then they can see images in their dreams. Unfortunately, those who are born blind cannot see any images. That does not mean that their dreams are any less vivid, it just means that a blind person’s dreams involve other parts of their senses like smell, touch and emotion.

We only dream of what we know. Have you ever realized that the faces you see in your dreams are always familiar? Your mind is not inventing those faces. They are real people in your life that you have seen before, but you may not recall, but surely your brain can. We all have seen thousands of faces during our life time, so there is no confined boundary of characters for our brain to apply into our dreams.

Can TV be the answer to see a coloured dream? 12% of all sighted people dream in black and white and the rest

dream in full colour. Studies show that from 1915 to 1960, most people had dreams in black and white. But in the 1960's these results began to alter. Now-a-days, research suggests that 4.4% of the dreams of people less than 25 years old are in black and white. Researches indicate that the alteration can be due to the switch from the "old black and white films" to the coloured TV and media. More interesting facts… Did you know that? The word dream originates from a Middle English word dream, which means ‘joy’ and ‘music’. • If you are snoring then you cannot be dreaming • You spend about one third of your life sleeping • Depriving rats of REM sleep greatly shortens their lives. Other mammals and birds also have REM sleep stages, but cold-blooded animals such as turtles, lizards and fish do not. •

The part of the brain involved with learning, thinking and organizing is called the cerebral cortex. These areas of the brain are “turned on” during REM sleep seems to help learning and memory. Children spend almost 50% of their sleep time in REM sleep and adults about 20% which can be explained by the tremendous amount of learning in infancy. •

• Toddlers do not dream about themselves until around the age of 3. From the same age, children typically have many more nightmares than adults do until age 7 or 8.

Isn’t it amazing what a dream can tell us about ourselves? ‘They can be a source of inspiration, wisdom, joy and overall improved psychological health.’ So good night and sweet dreams! I’m heading to my bed to check those facts for myself………..

REFERENCE •

http://psychology.about.com/od/stat esofconsciousness/p/dreamtheories.htm

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http://library.thinkquest.org/CR021 5623/whydream.htm

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http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/expla in/docs/dreams.asp

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http://listverse.com/2007/11/14/top10-amazing-facts-about-dreams/ http://www.tastyhuman.com/13interesting-facts-about-dreams/ http://www.dreammoods.com