Hello peeps, so I woke up last night all sweaty scared as s**t (excuse my French).. I had a nightmare that felt so real, the pain, the falling was so real that it sent shocking signals that sent me back to life (woke me up) . this inspired my research on why people have nightmares and to give an insight to end the oblivious natures of dreams..
we have nightmares, and what makes us afraid of our own thoughts?
ANSWER
SLEEP
Although it is not entirely known why we even sleep and/or dream in the first place, there are a few rather well accepted theories. First, theories on why we even sleep:
The restorative theory: Being awake and active takes a lot of energy. Aside from eating, one of the ways that our bodies conserves and restores energy and rejuvenates our body is simply by sleeping.
The evolutionary theory: This is slightly linked to the restorative theory in that it revolves around survival and efficiency. When we sleep, we’re not expending much energy, and we don’t require much energy. Thus, by sleeping, we conserve resources to help reduce the amount of food we need to eat. Additionally, it is thought that early humans and our ancestors benefited by sleeping at night because it allowed them to rest while also remaining motionless so that predators couldn’t find them.
Memory consolidation theory: In short, sleep functions as a way for us to take our memories from throughout the day and sort and consolidate them so that we can remember them better. This has a rather large degree of support because some studies show that napping after studying can help increase information retention.
Dreams
Onto dreams now; first, the nature of dreams. Dreams tend to be (as many I’m sure can agree with) rather emotional, not very logical, and full of sensory stimuli. These seemingly intrinsic properties can be explained with a variety of other theories:
The problem solving theory: Dreams are a way that our minds take unsolved problems from throughout the day and attempt to unconsciously sort through them and look for answers. One reason this has some support is because since dreams aren’t very logical, the abstract approach dreaming can lend to problem solving can sometimes provide unexplored answers by letting you think about something in a way you would’ve never tried otherwise.
Wish fulfillment: Our dreams manifest latent desires. (Good) Dreams are a place where you can do anything, be anything, and potentially be better (in your own eyes) than the real you is. A professor once told me that “everyone is great in their dreams”. Dreams can be a way for your mind to reassure itself and fulfill unlikely or impossible desires (which explains why many people fly in their dreams).
Activation-synthesis theory: This is the most scientific theory that attempts to explain dreams. Essentially, it states that while you sleep and as your brain recuperates, it does whatever work it needs to do along with a little “exercising” so that your mind stays active despite your being unconscious in the form of randomly stimulating neurons. As a side effect of the random neuron firing, your cortex receives random nonsensical “messages” (for lack of a better word), and tries to make sense of the nonsense and in the process produces what we experience as dreams.
Posted via odumosu omotoyosi