How Do We Dream and Why

Until 1952, no one knew what was going on, physically, in the brain that dream. Most scientists assumed that the brain is at rest in sleep, as well as a person who is asleep.

Then Eugene Aserinski, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, used the EEG (electroencephalograph, EEG reveals a weak electrical current that the brain creates while working and draws a wavy diagram of electricity on paper) to “listen” mind of his sleeping 8 year-old son. He was surprised by what he discovered. While the child is asleep, pencil EEG every few hours frantically drawing a zigzag patterns over the entire paper. At the same time, it seemed that the boy’s eyes under closed lids twitch back and forth.

Between REM, electric waves are slow and smooth, what to expect from the brain is asleep. But during REM sleepwhile dreaming, drawing of electrical waves is very similar to the findings of a completely awake man. However, as everyone knows, dreams are very different from reality. Nightmares are flooded with monsters and ghosts. Even in a beautiful dream events are often strange and confused. It seems that dreams have silly messed up structure.

Since we wake up, we often ask to do something in them had to do with something else. However, during sleep, all in some unusual and zany way agrees. Martin Seligman, a specialist in experimental psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, developed a theory that explains why it is so and what are dreams.

According to Seligman, the explosion of electricity in the brain that causes a dream image in a dream. New explosions produced a new image, and so on, for ten to thirty minutes of a typical dream. Perhaps the first image is a huge tree; the second image is an old house. Trying to make sense of the absurdity the mind each strange new image gets involved in a story. The story can be happy, sad or frightening, depending on the emotional state of the person who dreams.

This process of including all kinds of things in the plot of the story is also applied when irritation comes from outside (phone ringing, clamor). The brain has the ability to sounds or feelings from the outside quickly turn into the story. Read also this article How The Human Mind Works!

Year after year, scientists who study sleep, learn more about how we dream. However, it is still unknown why we dream. Seligman thinks that the theory of the structure of sleep suggests why we dream. Maybe dreams provide an opportunity to practice understanding of the world. Every day we need to deploy and interpret events and feelings – we need to connect them together in the story of our lives. And every night to practice. Seligman says that this could explain why babies spend most of the day sleeping and dreaming. Maybe learn the skills necessary for understanding of an immense and a new world. Read about The Pillow That Reads Your Mind!