Why do people dream

During sleep, nerve cells are widely suppressed, but this inhibition process is incomplete. Therefore, some nerves in the cerebral cortex are still in an excited state, which produces dreams. It can be seen that dreams occur with the activity of a few cells in the cerebral cortex. If the activity of a few cells loses the control and regulation of the entire cerebral cortex in the state of awakening, certain fragments of memory will be revived without restraint, and people will have a variety of strange dreams. If during sleep, the few cells in the excited state are certain nerve cells in the cerebral cortex related to language or movement, then people will usually see the phenomenon of talking in sleep, sleepwalking and so on. Dream is the result of neural activity during sleep, especially during REM sleep. Dream is also a kind of mental activity, which is the result of a certain level of consciousness. According to Freud, the human unconscious contains a large number of ideas, ideas, desires and impulses, etc. These ideas and ideas are usually suppressed in the unconscious because of conflicts with social ethics and morals, and individuals cannot be aware of them. Freud compared human psychology to an iceberg, in which consciousness is the tip of the iceberg above the surface, and unconsciousness is the part below the surface. Although the contents of human consciousness cannot be realized, they can be leaked out in one way or another, and one of the important ways is dreams. In any case, the dream is always the result of some stimulus that causes some neuronal activity, except that it cannot be clearly perceived or controlled. There is a so-called prophetic dream, for example, you dream that your leg is bitten by a dog, and after a few days the leg really grows a tumor, which should be explained? People who lack scientific knowledge will think that the gods are telling you that your leg is going to break, but it is actually caused by internal stimulation of the body. A tumor on the leg, it can not be shown in a day, and the initial stimulation is weak and not reached

The threshold of sensation is therefore difficult to detect, and in the awake state, people care more about external things, to micro: The weak internal world is more difficult to detect, but when people go to sleep, most of the nerve cells are in a state of inhibition, these stimuli are relatively strong, so that you have some awareness and can not control, so it may be unconsciously associated with related things to form a dream, such as dreaming that the leg was bitten by a dog, or riding the leg fell. This is why dreaming has a certain predictability.

Why do people dream?

Dream is a normal physiological phenomenon in the process of sleep. Everyone dreams just a lot, a little; Some are fresh when they wake up, some are vague or imperceptible. Those who assert that they have never dreamed, have merely forgotten. So don't be surprised about dreaming.

Since the right brain hemisphere is dominant in the dream, and the left brain hemisphere is dominant after awakening, waking and dreaming alternately appear in the 24 hours of day and night activities of the body, and the dynamic balance of nerve regulation and mental activities can be achieved. Therefore, dream is a way to coordinate the balance of the human mental world, especially on the attention, emotions and cognitive activities have a more obvious role.

The general sense of dreaming will not cause physical discomfort, let alone mental or physical burden, but some people feel that too much dreaming affects normal sleep, wake up dizzy, trance, exhaustion and weakness, dreams are still tangled in the brain for a long time, if the feeling seriously affects sleep, this is not a dream, but a symptom of insomnia. General insomnia will be accompanied by pathological dreams, which is also due to insomnia caused by lack of sleep caused by the break of sleep rules caused by fatigue, in fact, this sense of fatigue does not come from dreaming.

Dream greedy chewing fruit, dream suddenly feel sick, vomiting, dream of healthy teeth suddenly lost all, dream of being chased, panting fast running... I believe that everyone has a similar situation in the dream, but everyone's psychological reaction to the dream is not the same, some people ignore, some people are worried to the psychologist for help. Are dreams indicative of some psychosomatic illness? Professor Shen Zheng of the Department of Psychology of Peking University introduced that modern psychological research has confirmed that in the normal sleep situation without human factors interference, if a person frequently dreams about the same content in the recent period of time, it can be seen as a warning of the nervous system to psychosomatic health, which must be paid attention to.

When psychologists analyze dreams, they must put aside human factors. What are the human factors? He said that psychologists have done such an experiment, spray the eyes of sleeping people, wake them up one minute later, after waking up, all the people said that they dreamed of heavy rain or falling into the sea and other water-related dreams. If you move the legs of the sleeper, the dream is mostly related to movement, some people dream of being chased but can not run, some people will dream of falling into the abyss. Both experiments suggest that dreams are related to the environment during sleep. In addition, the dream is also affected by the sleeping position, the sleep position of the person will also stimulate the dream, such as a leg to hold the other leg, you will dream of being chased but not moving, pillows to press the jaw will dream of losing teeth. At the same time, the bedroom environment will also affect the dream, such as the bedroom is close to the highway or train road, you will hear strange noises in the dream, eat uncomfortable before going to bed, you will feel nauseous in the dream.

After excluding environmental factors that affect sleep, frequent dreams of the same or similar dreams over a period of time indicate an underlying disease. Professor Shen Zheng said, think carefully, whether you often dream of the following scenes: hear a strange sound in the dream, indicating that the auditory system may have potential diseases; Dreaming of eating, feeling nauseous and vomiting, indicates that there are potential diseases in the stomach; Dreaming of losing teeth, and having the same dream of losing teeth for several consecutive days, is related to oral movement and gastrointestinal function, indicating the existence of diseases in the digestive system and respiratory system. Shouting in a dream, also known as a nightmare, if a person encounters a danger in a dream, such as someone chasing but can not run, at this time people will be very panicked, often manifested as Shouting. If a person often nightmares, it is due to the excessive excitement of the brain, the brain frequent activities and not get the rest it should. At this time, you need to use some inhibitor drugs to let the brain get the rest it deserves during sleep, so that it can work better during the day.

Although the dream can remind the health status, but it does not mean that as long as the dream, there is any disease, which is also unscientific. Professor Shen Zheng reminds that if you exclude environmental and psychological factors, long-term recurring dreams of the same nature, you need to be vigilant, timely to the hospital for examination, rule out the possibility of corresponding diseases, but also to check sleep, and through drugs to improve sleep, so that such dreams no longer appear.

The Benefits of Dreaming

1. Adjust your mind

We know that if you have a good dream the night before, you will feel energetic and comfortable the next day. But if you have a nightmare, the next day the mood is not happy, will feel that you did not sleep well, will be anxious, irritable, love to lose temper, do not calm down. It can be seen that dreaming is an essential part of maintaining a good state of mind.

From the perspective of psychoanalytic psychology, the meaning of dreams lies in the satisfaction of desires. Whether you are a noble person, or a humble person, the depth of our hearts, there are too many willing or able to say and unwilling or unable to say the desire. Many of these almost endless desires cannot be satisfied instantly or at all in an unrealistic life. In real life, the desire that can not be satisfied or can not be satisfied can be psychologically satisfied in the dream and adjust the psychological balance.

Without dreams, our desires, big and small, would keep us awake. Even if we sometimes feel uneasy and anxious in our dreams, we can make both dreams and sleep work.

2, relieve fatigue, rest the body

Fatigue is the exhaustion of energy after physical activity and mental activity, and the energy of the brain mainly depends on the blood to supply glucose. Physical and mental activities require a lot of glucose, if the glucose supply from the blood can not meet its needs, this time it will use the body's reserves. This process of using the body's reserves produces a form of lactic acid.

Lactic acid accumulation is a physiological and biochemical manifestation of fatigue. Sleep can relieve this fatigue. In sleep, all activities stop, muscle consumption is also reduced, and in order to save energy, body temperature is also lowered.

When people sleep, another function is to synthesize new proteins. Most of the new proteins the body needs are synthesized during sleep. So sleep is essential to relieve fatigue and rest the body.

3. Organize information to bring insight

We go through a lot during the day, and our brain is constantly recording, constantly monitoring, constantly recording everything that's going on around you.

Whether you are conscious or unconscious, especially the visual information is very large, as long as your eyes sweep, all the stimulation will run to your brain. When you sleep, the brain will play back, as you play back, while sorting, and then according to different content, respectively, put it into different functional circuits in the brain.

In addition, the brain has a learning function at night. For example, in a famous strange case in the West, the detective was puzzled during the day and could not figure out how the case happened. As a result, he dreamed at night, dreamed what was going on, and the next day, according to the hints of his dream, solved the case. During a night's sleep like this, dreams sometimes lead to epiphanies and sometimes to innovations.

4. Dreaming helps your brain function

Dreaming can produce extremely active chemical reactions inside the brain, so that the protein synthesis and renewal of brain cells reach a peak, and the rapid flow of blood brings oxygen and nutrients, and the waste is carried away, which makes the brain cells that can not renew themselves will quickly update their protein components, in order to prepare for the tense activities in the next day. So, in a way, dreaming helps the brain function.

There are cells in the brain that don't work when you are awake, but when you are asleep, these cells are 'practicing' their function, which results in the formation of dreams. Dreams give people painful or pleasant memories, dreams exercise the function of the brain, dreams can sometimes guide you to change your life, but also can partially resolve waking conflicts, will make your life more fulfilling.