Perspectives on Dreaming

Perspectives on Dreaming

"That you have but slumber'd here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream…."

William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

Each night, visions inhabit our minds during sleep and vanish with the morning light. These visions, these dreams, are without substance. Often, the waking mind recalls dreams only vaguely, if at all. A complete, separate world seems to exist within each of us; a world that can only be found through sleep, through dreams. What are dreams? Why do some people find nightly reverie in the comfort of their beds, while others dread sleep, terrified of the content of their dreams, and yet others recall no dreams to fear or fancy? Speculations on dreams are common and vastly variant. Some people imagine that their dreams are prophetic, while others insist that dreams are merely random firings of neurons. Perhaps a more encompassing view of dreams is appropriate. Neural firing causes dreams, but the randomness of dreams is questionable, since dreams are often correlated with the immediate emotional state of the dreamer. The theories that are presented here do not completely explain dreams. There are many missing pieces to the puzzle of the mind, and our theories on dreaming still have rather large holes.

Dreams occur during sleep. While REM sleep is the best biological condition for dreaming, dreams may occur any time during sleep (1). The brain is less responsive to external inputs while sleeping, engaged, instead, with internally generated input (2) . While responsiveness to external input is greatly reduced during sleep, the brain in not completely unresponsive and can be stimulated by the environment (1) . Thus, exte...

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...n the physiological causes of dreams. In essence, dreams are caused by firings of the neurons in the brain, re-establishing a chemical balance. The second explanation for dreams consisted of psychological effects of dreaming. Dreaming settles emotional disturbance, integrating current feelings with memory. While our understanding of dreams is still incomplete, these two pictures of dreams compliment each other well. Both models essentially maintain homeostasis in the mind, chemically and emotionally. Since chemicals determine emotion, both models say the same thing, but in different ways.

Internet Sources:

1)Outline for a theory on the nature and functions of Dreaming , Ernest Hartmann, M.D.

http://www.asdreams.org/journal/articles/outline.htm

2) Sleep and Memory: Evolutionary Perspectives , J. Lee Kavan

http://bisleep.medsch.ucla.edu/SRS/srs/kavan.htm