What causes people to dream? what is the scientific reason for it and what causes the different types of dreams?

I just had a nightmare dream last night and I want to know what causes dreams. What is the scientific reason for dreams. Is there any meaning behind what types of dreams you have?

Always been fascinated by this. Asked by Anchorman 60 months ago Similar questions: people dream scientific reason types dreams Science > Psychology.

Similar questions: people dream scientific reason types dreams.

Oh, fun question....here are some interesting responses I found Not sure I agree 100% with these, but thought provoking anywayuncommon-knowledge.co.uk/why_do_we_dream... BreakthroughThe very latest understanding of why we evolved to dream comes from the groundbreaking research of the eminent psychologist Joseph Griffin. For the first time the biology and psychology of dreaming have been blended into a model that is accepted by many eminent psychologists the world over. (See review of The Origin of Dreams for more information)."Very convincing.

Much more acceptable than Freudian or Jungian notions. And Joe Griffin's interpretation of their dreams is entirely reasonable."Prof. Hans Eysenck on 'The Origin of Dreams' by Joe GriffinDreams Get Rid of Emotional ArousalIt has been agreed for some time that dreams deal with emotion. However, not all emotion causes dreaming.

Only emotional arousal unexpressed while awake causes us to dream.So, for example, if you have a screaming row with your partner you are unlikely to dream about it as the emotional arousal was allowed full expression. However if you become angry with someone at work but cannot express it then this frustration will probably be played out during dreaming.(This gives us an indication why dreams and hypnosis are interlinked. )How Do Dreams Work?

The brain will 'flush out' emotional arousal by creating a dream of a scenario that parallels the real-life experience - a metaphor. So, the work colleague from above might be symbolised by a monster and your anger would be allowed expression as you attacked the dream creature. If you ruminate angrily over the same issues the next day then you may well have a repetitive dream as the brain solves the same problem in the same way.

Rumination Causes DreamingOne of the most common ways to create unexpressed emotional arousal is to ruminate. Because we do this in our mind, there is rarely a situation where the emotion can be expressed. Depressed people dream much more than non-depressed people because typically, they do much more ruminating.

This can result in physical and mental exhaustion. (For more on this, see the Learning Path Depression E-Book)MORE AT THE LINKhttp://www.uncommon-knowledge.co.uk/hypnosis/dreaming.htmlDreaming is an amazing demonstration of your brain’s ability to 'simulate reality' and a clear indicator of why hypnosis works. It is fairly common for a hypnotized subject to vividly experience an imagined reality, less so than in dreaming perhaps, but absorbing nonetheless.

The rapid eye movement (REM) of dreaming is also often observed during hypnosis. And indeed, a traditional way to induce hypnosis was by swinging a watch in front of the subject’s eyes. Since dreaming is largely concerned with ‘clearing' the brain of emotional arousal, it is not hard to see one reason why hypnosis is so good for helping people with emotional problems.

Hypnosis, Catalepsy and DreamingA famous stage trick is to lie a hypnotised subject between two chairs and stand on their stomach. This is the sort of demonstration that has led to the idea that hypnosis is something strange. (Don’t try this at home by the way, it’s really bad for your back!)However, when we consider the link to the dream state, the reason this is possible becomes much clearer.

When you are dreaming, your ability to move is inhibited for obvious reasons - acting out your dreams would be highly dangerous for you and your sleeping partner. This phenomenon also occurs during hypnosis and allows us to create 'catalepsy' where parts of the body can become immobile or self supported for long periods without discomfort. http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0215623/whydream.htmNo one actually knows why people dream.

Doctors have theories though. One theory that doctors have is: When you are at school, home, or somewhere, there are so many things that are going on that you don't think about during the day, night, etc.When you sleep, in other words dream, you think about all of the things that have happened. Also, during the day or night, if you are worried or upset, or feeling something about someone, something, etc. , it all comes out.

You think/ dream about it when asleep. When people ask doctors and/or scientists," Does everyone dream? " Scientists and/or doctors say no.

Some say that they are not sure. Some people don't dream. They can skip the 1st stage of sleep: REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep.

Scientists and/or doctors don't really know why some people can do this. But they can. There are 4 steps to sleep.

REM stage is the dreaming stage. The REM stage of sleep stands for: Rapid Eye Movement. You can find out more on the stages of sleep in the other Dream sections.

MORE AT LINKQuestions we get asked most often...Q. What exactly are dreams?A. Dreams are expressions of thoughts, feelings, and awarenesses—that are represented through the creation of sensory environments in our minds.

The creation of the dreamscape is caused by stimulation of the sensory cortex, that occurs naturally during REM sleep.Q. Are dreams in any way related to every day life?A. Yes!

Dreams are representations of thoughts, feelings, and awarenesses that have been occupying our mind—usually for the day or two prior to the dream. If you want to know what a dream is about, think about how it relates to recent events in your life—like what happened yesterday or the day before!Q. Is there a certain time in the sleep cycle when people dream?A.Yes.

People dream during REM sleep, which occurs about every 90 minutes throughout the night, for progressively longer periods. For example, we may only dream 5 or 10 minutes in our first REM period, but by morning we all dream for about 30-40 minutes—right before we wake up!Q. Does everyone dream?A.

Everyone dreams about 100 minutes per night; we just have difficulty remembering our dreams. One hundred minutes is over an hour and a half per night of dreams—longer than most movies we see at the theater, or on TV!Q. Why do people dream?A.

Dreaming helps our brains grow, by exciting our neurons. Did you know that newborn babies dream about 8 hours per day? All warm-blooded creatures have REM sleep—cats dogs, horses—even birds and dolphins!Q.

Can a person affect what they dream about by food, drugs, or alcohol? Or by any other method?A. Some people say pineapple pizza and chocolate gives them wild dreams, but no one has really been able to prove this!

Most drugs—sleeping pills, marijuana, alcohol—decrease our dream recall. If you want to influence what you dream about, write down a question or goal for your dream in a dream journal—just before you go to bed. You will usually dream about your question or goal within a week.Q.Do dreams serve a purpose in the brain’s function?

Or are they part of the brain’s nighttime functions?A. In addition to helping our brains grow when we are young, researchers believe dreaming plays a role in memory—by strengthening connections between certain areas of our brains, and by allowing other connections (less useful information) to be released and forgotten. REM sleep also plays a role in releasing certain hormones in the brain.

Did you know that all anti-depressant drugs are effective because they dramatically reduce REM sleep? Scientists aren’t sure exactly why reduced REM relieves depression—but it does!Q. How can a person remember more of their dreams?A.

The trick is to learn to wake up slowly. When you first wake up, you need to concentrate on what you were just dreaming about. Try to lie still, and don’t move around very much or get out of bed—not yet.

Just concentrate on your dream, or the feeling that your dream caused you. It also helps if you keep a dream diary, and if you remind yourself—before you fall asleep—that you want to remember your dreams in the morning.Q. Why do some dreams cause a physical response?

Like after a bad dream—waking up with the heart racing?A. Even though our bodies are paralyzed during dreams, our involuntary body responses—including breathing and heart rate—still respond. When something happens in a dream, we think it’s real, and so we can get scared and nervous—just like we do in real life.Q.

Why do people sometimes repeat certain dreams over and over?A. Recurring dreams reflect feelings and awarenesses that have not been successfully resolved in our waking lives. Unresolved feelings often include the sudden loss of a loved one, or an abrupt end to a romantic relationship!

We wish the situation could have ended differently, so we tend to replay it in our minds.Q. How come on some nights people feel they have dreamt more than others?A. Some dreams are more emotional than others.

We tend to remember our emotional dreams—because they are vivid and intense—and because we often wake up directly from them! http://www.dreamdoctor.com/faq.shtml Sources: co.essortment.Com/dreamspeoplewh_reyl. Htm .

Philosophers and writers as far back as Aristotle have speculated on the reason for dreams, but the first theory to really catch fire was the one proposed by Sigmund Freud at the turn of the century. Freud believed that people dream to relieve sexual frustration created by repressed desire, allowing them to act on forbidden impulses. However, he felt that because the rules of polite society reject such impulses, people had to disguise their true feelings using symbolic imagery.

So instead of dreaming about sexual intercourse, a person might dream about a train entering a tunnel. Freud's theory has been widely disseminated and popularized through literature, television and movies, but most contemporary psychologists feel that it is riddled with problems. First, almost all mammals dream, and it is hard to believe that our pets feel the societal pressure to conform to sexual mores.

This argument applies to infants as well, since fetuses and newborns spend twice as much time dreaming than adults do. Furthermore, not all dreams involve sex or sexual imagery. Even Freud admitted, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

" In the late 1970s, Hobson and McCarley proposed the activation-synthesis hypothesis of dreaming, which maintains that a dream is simply a reflection of the brain’s aroused state during REM sleep. During this period, the cerebral cortex is active but is largely shut off from sensory input. Internal stimuli such as memories become more prominent because they do not have to compete with information pouring in through the senses.

According to Hobson and McCarley, the memories most likely to come to mind are the most recent ones, which would explain why we often dream of the previous day's events. The cortex performs its usual job and attempts to integrate the messages into a coherent narrative, but the fractured images combine in bizarre ways that make sense only within the context of the dream. However, dreams are not objective playbacks of our memories.

They are stories colored by thoughts, hopes and wishes that have deeply personal meaning. This would explain why we often dream about people, places and events that have emotional significance for us. Another theory about dreaming comes from the field of memory research.

This theory holds that the reiteration of memories in our dreams serves to solidify the memory's storage. Support for this idea comes from studies where subjects learned a set of words before undergoing a period of REM sleep deprivation. The group that did not get any REM sleep recalled fewer words than the group that was allowed to experience REM sleep.

These findings prompted neuroscientists to examine the brain for patterns of neuronal activity that occurred both during waking and sleeping. This is a difficult task even in a rat brain, since there are billions of possible synaptic connections. Where to look first?

In Bruce McNaughton's lab, they concentrated on spatial learning and the hippocampus. They found that neuronal circuits in the hippocampus that were active while the rat was learning a spatial task (such as a maze) were reactivated when the animal went to sleep. These results are exciting, but so far there is no hard evidence that memory reactivation during sleep has functional significance.

While the REM sleep deprivation experiments would suggest that sleep and memory are connected, such findings are always difficult to interpret because lack of sleep usually makes people irritable and less focused. The elusive and personal nature of dreams makes them challenging to study, but researchers are making inroads toward unlocking their meaning. Until then they remain tantalizing glimpses into the world of the sleeping brain, a mystifying and mesmerizing nightly movie theater for one.

Joanna Schaffhausen earned a B.S. In psychology from Tufts University in 1996. She is currently a graduate student at Yale University, interested in the cellular basis of learning and memory Sources: www.brainconnection.com .

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A scientific reason.

Tell us about the most unusual dream you have ever had.

I dream about people dying. Is this an omen?

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.