Dreams are topic that can be discussed endlessly. Since physiology and neurobiology have taken the field, almost 70 years ago, to study the nocturnal adventures of our mind, many aspects have been clarified. But many continue to investigate. Here are the fixed points acquired so far based on the most recent studies, in possible questions & answers.
In part, it has to do with brain activity while we sleep . Normally, memories are stored in a brain formation called a hippocampus. During the REM phase of sleep, the one in which most of the dream activity takes place, the "connections" with this area are switched off.
This means that we do not have access to specific memories of the past while we dream, while we can remember faces and places, which in fact commonly appear in the plot of dreams. Furthermore, activity in the cerebral areas connected to emotions is greater than during waking.
In contrast, that of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, where logical thinking takes place, is reduced. Combined, these factors help to account for the quirkiness of dreams, in which images of known people and places appear, combined at random, and at the same time the normal logical considerations are absent. To fly, to breathe underwater, to see a person transform into another ... we seem strange only when we wake up .
This is what has been believed for a long time, since in the fifties in laboratory experiments the dream activity has been linked specifically to the REM sleep, a phase that repeats several times during the night and is characterized by rapid eye movements.
The volunteers who participated in the experiments were awakened at different times of sleep, and only when this occurred during the Rem phase reported being in the middle of a dream.
However, recent studies have denied this theory. One also dreams during the rest of sleep, but without remembering it. While the Rem dreams are vivid and characteristic for their strangeness, it seems that those that occur during deep sleep are more "normal": connected to events of everyday life, more monotonous, and usually even more difficult to remember.
We all dream. But there are those who remember dreams very well and who do not. Recent research, such as that of a university group , has shown that it is possible to predict who will remember dreams and who do not on the basis of a "signature" characteristic of the activity in the prefrontal cortex, linked to memory, during sleep .
Only patients with a rare condition, Charcot-Wilbrand syndrome, do not dream. The researchers also identified the reason: they are affected by a lesion in a part of the visual cortex known as the inferior temporal gyrus.
Yes. The dreams of younger children, aged 2-3 years, although it is difficult to study them, according to some research, they often deal with static situations, single scenes and actions, such as sleeping in a different place from the bed, or dreaming about animals or even monsters.
In the slightly older children the type of dream begins to develop with a narrative, and the dreamer is also involved in the action, with family members or friends. It also seems that older people tend to dream less and remember dreams less.
It seems so. Canadian researchers, in a study some years ago, have trained an artificial intelligence system to distinguish the dreams of males from those of females based solely on their content. The computer has guessed 3 times out of 4. It also seems that in men's dreams more often dream about women , while in women they dream about men and women in the same percentage.
The debate has been open for centuries. Freud's hypothesis that dreams were the fulfillment of hidden desires has been abandoned. Even for the common experience, it is easy to see how the mood can affect the emotional tone of our night-time films . If we are anxious or under pressure, it is easier for us to have distressing dreams. And if a certain activity or certain thoughts engage us a lot during the day, it happens that they also appear at night.
Much research has linked the experiences during the vigil to the content of dreams, which however - it must be said - often crowd up contents that have nothing to do with it. In short, assuming that dreams mean something, for now there is no one who holds the key to interpreting them.
