I flew again in my dream: What affects our dreams and how
Dreams are a fragile product of our psyche., still very little studied. There are a lot of mysteries and hypotheses around them. While some believe in the magic of dreams and read dream books, others simply wonder why sometimes dreams become exciting, like movies, and sometimes it seems that nothing has been dreamed of. Together with the head of the CDC Medsi Center of Somnology at Krasnaya Presnya Tatyana Surnenkova, we tried to figure out who most often walks in a dream, whether it is possible to see the interrupted sleep and which medications affect our dreams.
What affects our dreams
According to Surnenkova, the content of dreams is influenced by previous events or the current state of a person. For example, if you are thirsty, the stage of dreaming may become longer, and the dreams themselves more vivid, it is likely that their content will be associated with water. In one study, it was reported that sounds are influenced by the content of dreams: people often dreamed about the forest while birds were singing and a sunny day at the beach to the cries of seagulls. The author of this experiment even invented an application designed to tune the brain to certain dreams - however, the application itself remains experimental.
It is known that the amount of sleep affects the ability to remember negative episodes from life. In 2008, the results of a study were published, according to which neutral scenes were forgotten equally after twelve hours of wakefulness or the same number of night hours, including sleep. However, if the scene was unpleasant, then after the dream, the object itself, which caused negative emotions, was clearly recalled, but the background situation was forgotten. The authors concluded that sleep helps to extract from adverse situations what is most important to remember for your own safety.
Nightmares may be associated with their experiences - for example, they are quite common in post-traumatic syndrome. They can seriously disrupt the quality of sleep, often leading to awakening, and in this case it is worthwhile to consult a doctor. The international classifications of sleep disorders and mental disorders include nightmares, so-called sleep disorders associated with fear, and nightly panic attacks — and there are protocols for treating all these unpleasant conditions.
Drugs can affect the content of dreams. In the lists of the side effects of some drugs, nightmares and unusual (for example, erotic) dreams are indicated. There is also an opinion that cheese and other dairy products can cause vivid dreams, and dishes with the addition of apple cider vinegar are very colorful and realistic dreams. However, there is no reliable data on this.
Are there still prophetic dreams
Today, sleep remains one of the big secrets, and “prophetic” dreams are an interesting mystery for somnologists. The great scientist Sechenov described dreams as "unprecedented combinations of experienced impressions." Billions of information flows that our brain processes during the year can be put together in the most bizarre combinations - we may not notice some trifle during wakefulness, and then see it in a dream in all details. If what you see in a dream comes true, scientists still prefer to call it a coincidence without hitting the mystic.
At the same time, some information about the state of one’s own organism can still be given by dreams — according to Tatyana Surnenkova, in patients with high blood pressure, dreams are characterized by frequent scenes of hostility, and neuroses are accompanied by nightmares at the beginning of the night. During sleep, we are almost completely disconnected from external influences and the brain becomes more susceptible to information coming from internal organs and various parts of the body. Therefore, certain pathological processes in the body can be reflected in dreams, but not in the format "an old iPhone dreams to a melancholic mood."
The tendency of people to believe that dreams mean something important is explained by the desire of a person to rationalize everything that happens. It is believed that the first dream book appeared about seven thousand years ago in Mesopotamia. Dreams have tried to decipher in ancient Greece, Egypt, Rome - and, according to some polls, most people believe in their significance so far. If you start typing in the search bar "what", the browser will offer popular queries - people are interested in what dreams of snakes, spiders, tampons or white "Hummer".
Obsessive, collective and erotic dreams
Erotic dreams are many dreams and can include amazing scenarios - including having sex with someone you hate or with someone from close relatives. Emotions after awakening can vary from joy and unwillingness to wake up to disgust and even feelings of guilt. It is sometimes said that for people who perceive sex as something bad and suppress thoughts about it, such dreams can be replaced by symbolic ones — Freud also wrote about phallic symbols like bananas and tall buildings. However, in general, scientists believe that erotic dreams only say that your libido is all right. If you dream of any sexual practices that you are not ready and do not want to implement in real life, this does not say anything about you, and you can ignore such dreams.
Most (up to 70%) people have repeated dreams and theoretically speak of some kind of unresolved conflict - however, dreams of a failed exam are also often dreamed of by those who have long been left behind, so there is no final answer yet. Psychologists are inclined to think that obsessive dreams reflect our fears - almost everyone is afraid of being late for a plane or forgetting a passport at home - and repeated during periods of stress.
There is also the concept of typical dreams that appear to many people: flying or "walking" in the air, falling, running from the pursuer, finding new rooms and corridors in your own home. Many dreamed of being late for work or coming there naked, as they could not find a toilet when they were impatient, or they were trying to run away from a natural disaster like a tsunami. There is no unequivocal explanation for this phenomenon - most likely, this is one of the mechanisms by which our brain works with emotions (embarrassment, fear, panic).
What is sleepwalking?
Sleepwalking is a violation of the slow phase of sleep, in which sleeping people can walk or perform some actions in their sleep. This is a fairly common phenomenon, especially at a young age, but its frequency decreases with age: it occurs in 5% of children and 1.5% of adults. Sleeping walking can be caused by taking certain medications or stress, but heredity also plays a role.
As a rule, sleepwalking is not “long-playing” and often passes by ten years, so in most cases it is not treated. However, doctors warn that some diseases (for example, epilepsy) can provoke motor activity in a dream, so it is better not to leave such episodes without attention - it may be better to consult a doctor and be examined. In addition, the danger of walking in a dream is in potential injuries, so it makes sense to pay attention to the additional safety measures at home.
If a person starts walking in a dream at about the same time - a good option would be to wake him up about fifteen minutes before, and after a few minutes of wakefulness let him fall asleep. It is believed that it is dangerous to wake a person right during an episode of sleepwalking - as if he might attack in response. Such cases were indeed, and it is recommended, if possible, to simply help him return to his room and put to bed, or wake him up with a loud cry. If a person is already in a dangerous situation - on the edge of the roof or on top of a crane, waking up can lead to loss of balance. It is better to make every effort to move the person to a safe place - and, of course, try to just avoid such situations.
Another interesting and sometimes scary phenomenon is sleep palsy, when a person cannot move or speak immediately after waking up or before falling asleep. This happens when the phase of REM sleep comes at the wrong time while you are still awake. If sleep paralysis occurs often, the situation can be improved - we will tell about it in more detail in one of the next publications.
Is it possible to cause lucid dreams
At the moment, the doctors have not yet found the method that would allow them to return to the "unedited" sleep. In addition, physicians regard the desire to return to yesterday’s sleep as a departure from reality and suggest that the appearance of such an opportunity would lead to the abuse of dreams and loss of interest in life. Perhaps this opinion is unreasonable, because watching TV shows and reading books is also a kind of escape from reality, but it is even encouraged, because a person needs to rest.
Some “tuning” of dreams is still possible: in one of the studies, patients during anesthesia saw exactly those pictures that they had previously imagined on the basis of prompts. However, such dreams are called truly conscious, during which a person realizes that he is sleeping. There is also a certain "call" scheme of such dreams, and on the request "how to cause a conscious dream" the search engine gives out 246 thousand links. It is proposed, for example, to plan what exactly you will do in a dream, or "test reality." This means that every day you need to ask yourself several times whether you are in reality now or you are sleeping - after some time this question will repeat in a dream.
True, doctors are skeptical about lucid sleep. "While there are no control methods that would confirm devices or sensors," explains Tatiana Surnenkova, "all guesses remain at the level of hypotheses. It is only known that sometimes attempts to practice lucid dreams have a negative effect on mental health." Experiments with sleep are likely to lead to lack of sleep with all its consequences, such as impaired concentration. And, of course, it is not necessary to experiment with substances that "expand consciousness": they do not guarantee lucid dreams, but they cause significant harm.
Is learning effective in a dream?
About fifty years ago, scientists suggested that during sleep the brain is very susceptible to learning. A hypothesis was put forward: if you read a completely new material to a sleeping person, you can expect it to be played when the sleeper wakes up. Learning in a dream has received the name of hypnosis, and the scientists who studied it agreed that the information can really be remembered in a dream. Otherwise, the results of their research were contradictory: some said that memory works best before waking up and after falling asleep, others that it is most active only during REM sleep, but it was not possible to make final conclusions.
German somnologists conducted an experiment in which students were shown a pair of cards on the screen, accompanying visual information olfactory: participants inhaled the scent of roses. After some time, the experiment participants fell asleep, and half of them in a dream were stimulated with the same smell. It turned out that it was this group that better remembered the location of the cards — that is, the memory in a dream was influenced by the stimulus that was used while waking along with the data itself for memorization. Anyway, somnologists agree that it is really possible to memorize information in a dream, but only if it is compulsory to study during the day. While we sleep, old knowledge is well assimilated, but not new.
Some people say they don’t dream at all - but in fact they don’t remember them. One of the possible explanations is that people who remember dreams, in general, wake up more often at night - and the awakening literally immediately after the dream does not allow him to forget. In addition, some people ignore their dreams, while others pay attention to them, as if “translating” from short-term memory into long-term memory and not letting them be forgotten.
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