Dreams: what are they and what do they mean? (2023)

Imagine that. You are enjoying a deep and restful sleep when you suddenly wake up with a start. However, it is not because of outside noise, but because of a vivid dream.

This is not necessarily unusual. But you may wonder why your dreams are so realistic. And what does it mean when you dream of someone? What does it mean to dream of falling? What about recurring dreams?

Psychologists like Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung developed theories to explain the meaning of dreams. "Freud believed that dreams were repressed content, ideas or motivations," says the expert in behavioral sleep medicine.Michelle Drerup, PsyD, DBSM. “Jung's theory comes from Freud's ideas and has the idea of ​​the collective unconscious. It's something you carry from your ancestors."

But from a medical point of view, the interpretation of dreams remains a mystery. "There really is no coherent, scientifically validated theory linking specific content to the meaning of a dream," Dr. Drerup notes.

What are dreams?

The dreams themselves are a little less mysterious. "Dreams are images or actions that occur during sleep," explains Dr. Drerup. You can dream in any stage of sleep, but the most vivid dreams usually occur in rapid eye movement sleep orsleep in REM phase. This is the period of sleep when your brain is highly active, your eyes dart behind your closed eyes, and you have a temporary loss of muscle tone.

"In REM sleep, we have less autonomic stability," says Dr. Drerup. “Our heart rate increases. We don't have the kind of steady, steady breathing that we have in other stages of non-REM sleep."

Scientists have a hard time analyzing dreams because we often don't remember them. "Even if you have a sleep study, it's not like we can look inside your brain and see what's going on while you sleep," Dr. Drerup says. "That's one of the reasons they remain mysterious: they're hard to study."

Why do we dream?

Doctors have several working theories about this.why do we dream. First, Dr. Drerup says that you, too, have a tendency to dream.furtherin REM sleep. Also, dreaming at this stage is associated with "memory consolidation," he adds.

“Dreams may represent important cognitive functions. The brain activity that occurs during sleep is similar to the memory processing brain activity we experience when we are awake."

When you experience more stress or anxiety, you tend to daydream more frequently. HetypesYour dreams also change. Drerup says that nightmares or stressful dreams—for example, being chased or being in a scary situation—are also common when you're stressed. "It's one of the theories about why we dream," he says. "Our dreams can help us process and manage our emotions."

Interestingly, Dr. Drerup notes that scientists have discovered that people living in certain places can have similar night visions, although they're not entirely sure why. "Dreams seem to have some cultural influence," he explains. "For example, the same type of dreams may be more common in Germany."

What do dreams mean?

Determining what dreams mean is a big question that doctors, researchers, and scientists are still trying to answer. But Dr. Drerup emphasizes that dream interpretation is subjective. “That's what I always tell people: its meaning.Tyattributed to this dream will be much more significant than anything elseIto sleep," he says. "Because it's probably something in your life that's represented in this dream."

As an example, Dr. Drerup points out that you may have the same dream as someone else, but yours will be more representative of what you personally experience. "For example, if someone recently lost their job, a dream about not being able to find their shoes can mean something completely different to someone who is recently divorced."

Dreaming that you are pregnant, that is, starting a new life, is also subjective. This can happen when she is trying to get pregnant or if she was pregnant and had a miscarriage. Or maybe not. “It is so much more than what this dream means to you. Your pregnancy dream may be something else: "Start a new career." In a way, a new life. A dream can mean many different things."

Although the experiences you have in a dream may be based on real events, this does not mean that your dreams are always realistic. "A person can enter a dream or a situation or place that he or she would not normally be in," Dr. Drerup notes. "Which means; your guest is as good as mine.

However, sometimes even the strangest dreams have a logical explanation. Dreams about tooth loss can occur because you grind your teeth while you sleep, this condition is calledbruxism. "This dream is more of a sign of mental stress," says Dr. Drerup.

What causes nightmares?

Nightmares can be frightening and have long-lasting effects, even when you're awake. "With nightmares, especially recurring ones, you feel like you're acting out a story," says Dr. Drerup. "People often say it's like the same movie."

Talking about a nightmare as if you were watching a movie can have unexpected consequences. "If you have a nightmare, you're going to tell everything because it was so weird, right?" works of Dr. Drerup. “But repeating this nightmare over and over again means your neural pathways get stronger. It's like developing a memory of that nightmare. Then the dream is more likely to repeat itself.

Dr. Drerup says that nightmares are often associated with other situations and events, including:

post traumatic stress disorder

For someone living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), nightmares are often part of reliving the trauma.

Alcohol

Being too complacent can make nightmares worse.

stress

High stress levels can cause more dreams and nightmares. According to Dr. Drerup, this is likely because stress causes an acceleration of the emotional processing that takes place during sleep.

Mental disorders

Dr. Drerup says that mental disorders like depression and anxiety are more often associated with nightmares.

drug dispatcher

Stopping certain medications can also cause more nightmares. "Antidepressants suppress REM sleep and reduce the amount of REM sleep," explains Dr. Drerup. "When you stop the antidepressant, you tend to go back to REM."

In other words, you experience more REM sleep, which makes you more likely to spend your time where sleep occurs. "People often have more dreams or nightmares when taking antidepressants," she adds.

Treatment of sleep apnea without treatment

People receiving help for the untreatedSleep apneathey often have "high levels of dream recall and possibly nightmares as well," says Dr. Drerup. "If you have sleep apnea, you have fragmented, interrupted sleep." Better sleep quality means you enter REM sleep and stay there "instead of those brief awakenings that keep you out of REM sleep," he notes. "You'll also have the REM bounce."

Can sleep disorders affect dreams?

Sleep disorders can affect all aspects of sleep, including dreams.

nightmare disorder

For some people, nightmares are more than a temporary fear. They havesleep disordercalled nightmare disorder.

"With nightmare disorder, you have these really disturbing nightmares that keep coming back," says Dr. Drerup. "They happen often. They wake you from sleep. You can't sleep later. When you wake up, you panic and need some time to reorient yourself.

This disorder can be debilitating as you often feel very tired during the day. But Drerup says it's possible to treat nightmares using what's known asimaging rehearsal therapy.

“This treatment really worksimportant researchbehind it,” says Dr. Drerup. "You work with your therapist to rewrite the nightmare so that it has less disturbing content, and then you practice new dream imagery throughout the day."

"This is likeguided visualizationthis new content to make sleep less disturbing”, he continues. "The images you practice can replace or reduce the frequency of this destructive nightmare or eliminate it entirely."

REM sleep behavior disorder

A sleep disorder called REM sleep behavior disorder can also cause abnormal dreams. "During REM sleep, your muscles are usually paralyzed, so you don't dream," says Dr. Drerup. "From an evolutionary standpoint, it was because we were more protected because we couldn't move in our sleep."

However, people living with REM sleep behavior disorder are not actually paralyzed, which means they can move around while they sleep. Dr. Drerup says this isn't always a problem, but it can be in some cases.

"Often it's not that upsetting for you, unless you hit someone in your sleep and then hit your spouse or your nightstand and hurt yourself," she says. "There are security concerns."

Disturbances in REM sleep behavior can also herald larger health problems. "When someone is diagnosed with REM sleep behavior disorder very early in life, it's associated with a really high conversion rate to someone who will eventually develop Parkinson's orDementia with Lewy bodies.”

Is it normal not to dream?

Dr. Drerup says that there is a rare condition called Charcot-Wilbrand syndrome in which people do not dream at all. This sleep loss occurs after focal brain damage (usually astrike), which is characterized by a loss of the ability to recall (or “re-view”) images.

But most people dream, you just don't remember them. "People will say, 'I'm not dreaming at all because I sleep badly.' And that's not necessarily the case," explains Dr. Drerup. "Just because you don't have dream content doesn't mean you don't dream. We usually don't remember our dreams until we wake up from them."

Ultimately, however, the interpretation of dreams remains a great mystery that has not yet been solved. But if you're trying to figure out what your subconscious is trying to tell you, look in your everyday life for clues.

"When we wake up, we can remember the dream very well and then it goes away," says Dr. Drerup. "And then you're back to thinking, 'I know I had a weird dream, but I don't remember it.'" So if you want to be more aware, look at the details when you wake up: how the dream was, see if there are patterns."

"Again, it has a lot more to do with the meaning you give to dreams," he adds. "This is critical. This is more important than dream books that mention specific interpretations.