Dreams are defined as: Thoughts, visions and other sensations that occupy the mind in the sleep process.

The human brain is a mysterious grey ball of matter. Even after years and years of research scientist and our medical community are still baffled by many of the mysterious aspects of how and why it operates like it does. Scientists have been performing sleep and dream studies and still don’t have a concrete conclusions about the function of sleep or exactly how and why we dream. What is known is that that our dream cycle is typically most abundant and best remembered during the REM stage of sleep. It’s also pretty commonly accepted among the scientific community that we all dream though the frequency in which dreams are remembered varies from person to person. Dreams occur during that part of sleep when there are rapid eye movements (REMs). We typically have three to five periods of REM sleep per night.

The question of whether dreams actually have a physiological, biological or psychological function has yet to be answered fully. There are several ideas as to why we dream. One idea is that dreams work hand in hand with sleep to help the brain sort through everything it collects during the waking hours. Your brain is met with hundreds of thousands if not millions of inputs each day. Some are minor sensory details like the color of a passing vehicle while others are far more complex such as a big presentation you’re putting together for your job. During sleep the brain works to sift through all of this information to decide what it needs and what it can let go and forget Some researchers feel like dreams play a role in this process.

This idea is not just a stab in the dark .There is research to back up the ideas that dreams are tied to how we form memories. Studies indicate that as we’re learning new things in our waking hours dreams increase while we sleep. Participants in a dream study who were taking a language course showed more dream activity than those who were not. In light of such studies, the idea that we use our dreams to sort through and convert short-term memories into long-term memories has gained some momentum in recent years.

Another theory is that dreams typically mirror our emotions. During the day our brains are working hard to make connections to achieve certain functions. When posed with a tough math problem your brain is incredibly focused on that one thing. And the brain doesn’t only serve mental functions. If you’re building a table your brain is focused on making the right connections to allow your hands to work in concert with a saw and some wood to make an exact cut. The same goes for simple tasks like hitting a nail with a hammer. Have you ever lost focus and smashed your finger because your mind was elsewhere? We’ve all done that before it seems!

Some have proposed that at night everything slows down. We aren’t required to focus on anything during sleep so our brains make very loose connections. It’s during sleep that the emotions of the day battle it out in our dream cycle. If something is weighing heavily on your mind during the day chances are you might dream about it either specifically or through obvious imagery. For instance, if you’re worried about losing your job to company downsizing you may dream you’re a shrunken person living in a world of giants or you’re walking aimlessly through a great desert abyss without any end in sight.

There’s also a theory that dreams don’t really serve any function at all and that they’re just a pointless byproduct of the brain firing while we slumber. We know that the rear portion of our brain gets pretty active during REM sleep when most dreaming occurs. Some think that it’s just the brain winding down for the night and that dreams are random and meaningless firings of the brain that we don’t have when we’re awake. The truth is though as long as the brain remains such a mystery we probably won’t be able to pinpoint with absolute certainty exactly why we dream.

Highlights of Dreams

We may not remember dreaming, but everyone is thought to dream between 3 and 6 times each night
It is thought that each dream lasts between 5 to 20 minutes
Around 95 percent of dreams are forgotten by the time a person gets out of bed
Dreaming can help you learn and develop long-term memories
Blind people dream more with other sensory components compared with sighted people

The Causes of Dreams

Representing unconscious desires and goals
Interpreting random signals from the brain and body during sleep
Consolidating and processing information gathered during the day
Working as a form of psychotherapy
Offline memory reprocessing in which the brain consolidates learning and memory tasks and supports and records waking consciousness
Preparing for possible future threats in the waking life
Cognitive simulation of real life experiences such as dreaming as subsystem of the waking default network the part of the mind that is active during daydreaming
Helping a person develop cognitive capabilities
Reflecting unconscious mental function in a psychological perception
A unique state of consciousness that incorporates the experience of the present the processing of the past and the preparation for the future
A psychological space where overwhelming, contradictory or highly complex emotions can be brought together by the dreaming ego. Ideas and impressions that would be too powerful when a person is awake. Dreams serve the need for psychological balance and equilibrium.

Phases of Sleep

Phase 1 Light sleep, slower eye movement, and reduced muscle activity. This stage forms six percent of total sleep.

Phase 2 Eye movement stops and brain waves become slower with occasional bursts of rapid waves called sleep spindles. This stage forms 50 percent of total sleep.

Phase 3 Extremely slow brain waves called Delta Waves begin to appear and are interspersed with smaller and faster waves. This accounts for five to seven percent of total sleep.

Phase 4 The brain produces Delta Waves almost exclusively. It is difficult to wake someone during stages 3 and 4 which together are called “Deep Sleep.” There is no eye movement or muscle activity. People awakened while in deep sleep do not adjust immediately and often feel disoriented for several minutes after waking up. This forms about 16 percent of total sleep.

Phase 5 This stage is known as rapid eye movement (REM) Breathing becomes more rapid and is irregular and shallow. Eyes jerk rapidly in various directions and limb muscles become temporarily paralyzed. The heart rate increases and blood pressure rises. When people can awaken during REM sleep they often describe bizarre and illogical tales. It almost seems like an Alice in Wonderland sort of World. These are dreams. This stage accounts for 20 to 25 percent of total sleep time. Neuroscience offers explanations linked to the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep as a likely candidate for the cause of dreaming.

What are Dreams?

Dreams are a universal human experience that can be described as a state of consciousness characterized by sensory, cognitive and emotional occurrences during sleep. The dreamer has reduced control over the content, visual images and activation of the memory. There is no cognitive state that has been as extensively studied and yet as frequently misunderstood as dreaming. There are significant differences between the neuroscientific and psychoanalytic approaches to dream analysis. Neuroscientists are interested in the structures involved in dream production, dream organization, and narratability. However, psychoanalysis concentrates on the meaning of dreams and placing them in the context of relationships in the history of the dreamer. Reports of dreams tend to be full of emotional and vivid experiences that contain themes, concerns, dream figures, and objects that correspond closely to waking life. These elements create a “Novel reality” seemingly out of the ether that produces an experience with a lifelike timeframe and connections.

Why We Dream-Threat Stimulation

This idea is based upon the observation that dreams function as practice drills for threatening situations that may arise in the real world in real time. By giving rise in the brain to a real-time hallucinatory world of subjective experiences during the sleep process the dream process provides a safe environment for such exposure be selecting waking events that could be deemed as dangerous and simulating them repeatedly in several combinations. Such examples are primitive themes of danger and eminent death that would likely have played our in our ancestral environment such as being chased or falling.

Conditioning the Brain

If your brain went completely dark all night it would begin to lose function just as rarely-used muscles will start to decay.. Several researchers, including the psychophysiologist Fred Snyder, argued that the adaptive purpose of dreaming may therefore be primarily to stimulate the brain or to keep it “in shape” during prolonged periods of inactivity. Later research offered support for this general idea. For example, specific categories of neurotransmitters were shown to be highly active during this period, while others seemingly “rested.” In other words, as psychologist Steven Pinker puts it, “Dreaming might be a kind of screen saver in which it doesn’t really matter what the content is as long as certain parts of the brain are active”.

Dreaming and REM Sleep

We typically spend more than two hours each night dreaming, yet scientists do not know much about how or why we dream. Sigmund Freud believed dreaming was a safety valve for unconscious desires. Only after 1953, when researchers first described REM in sleeping infants, did scientists begin studying sleep and dreaming carefully. They soon discovered that the strange illogical experiences we call dreams almost always occur during the REM part of sleep. While most mammals and birds show signs of REM sleep reptiles and other cold-blooded animals do not.

REM sleep begins with signals from the pons which is an area at the base of the brain. These signals travel to a region called the thalamus which relays them to the cerebral cortex which is the outer layer of the brain responsible for learning, thinking, and organizing information. The pons send signals that shut off neurons in the spinal cord causing temporary paralysis of limb muscles. If something interferes with this paralysis some people will begin to physically act out their dreams, a rare and dangerous problem called REM sleep behavior disorder.

REM sleep stimulates the brain regions used in learning, which may be important for normal brain development during infancy. This would explain why infants spend much more time in REM sleep than adults. Like deep sleep, REM sleep is associated with increased production of proteins. One study determined that REM sleep affects learning certain mental skills. People taught a skill and then deprived of non-REM sleep were able to recall, upon awakening, what they had learned, while people deprived of REM sleep were not. Some scientists believe dreams are the cortex’s attempt to find meaning in the random signals received during REM sleep. One theory suggests that in trying to organize and interpret these signals the cortex creates a narrative from the fragmented brain activity.

Outward Vigilance in Dreams

Most dreams are notably lacking in olfactory and auditory content. One theory holds that that’s because if they were the dreamer would be particularly susceptible to real-world threats like fire or noisy predators. Being what is known as a “light sleeper” in relation to these other sensory domains had adaptive benefits and since we’re in the dark anyway and our eyes are closed there is less of of a risk in hallucinating in our secret visual worlds while our brains are being recharged.

Dreaming as a Way of Problem Solving

This is my favorite area of study. According to Harvard University psychologist Deirdre Barrett the phrase “Sleeping On It” does work in terms of real-world problem solving and may actually be our evolutionary purpose of dreaming ,even if those dreams don’t always make sense to us immediately. In other words, dreamscapes provided our ancestors with a sort of creative palette for solving our earthly problems. In support of this, Barrett describes the work of Stanford University psychologist William Dement who in the early 1970s instructed hundreds of undergraduate students to work on a set of challenging brainteasers before bedtime so that they’d fall asleep with the problems still on their mind.

Lucid Dreaming

Lucid dreaming is a unique dream state where you are aware you’re dreaming and have the ability to control what’s happening in your dream. If you didn’t know any better (which you may not until you wake up)you may think you’re experiencing real life. That’s because the conscious part of your brain wakes up while you’re dreaming — you’re self-aware even though you’re still asleep. In non-lucid dreams, the conscious part of your brain is shut down. That’s why dreams feel like a blur when you wake up, because you weren’t fully aware of what was going on. In fact, of the greatest differences between a lucid and non-lucid dream is having a degree of control over that dream’s outcome. A regular dream is like watching a movie play out in front of you. A lucid dream is like being an active participant in that movie. For people who experience lucid dreaming, the goal is being able to do whatever you want to do, and be whoever you want to be within a lucid dream. That’s why achieving a state of lucid dreaming is so highly sought after. Lucid dreaming feels like manipulating real life–but from within the construct of your own mind! You can travel anywhere in an instant, defy the laws of physics, change your identity, wish for something and make it happen. The world is essentially yours to do with as you please. In a lucid dream your senses are heightened. Sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch are all more extreme than what you would experience in real life. Emotional feelings may also be intensified. You’ll feel a greater sense of happiness and pleasure from engaging in enjoyable activities. Additionally negative feelings such as fear and pain are also amplified. As you become more proficient at controlling your dreams you can avoid such feelings.

Psychic Dreams

Sometimes a dream is more than just an average dream. We can’t always change the things we see. But more often when the sixth sense is activated there is probably a good reason for it. Some dreams give us advanced warnings to either avoid danger or prepare for difficult events. Sometimes we are given advanced knowledge in able to find a solution to a problem. Every time we fall asleep our unconscious is set free from the physical world and enters a different and more timeless dimension. We are all connected at a soul level and dreams. Both individual and shared ones. It is the DNA of the soul. Psychic premonitions, both sleeping and awake, have been happening since the dawn of man.. Every civilization has recorded incidents of humanities experiences with dreams. In the realm of the unconscious we are all psychic beings.

Soul Walking

When you emotionally and psychically tune into a person or a real-life event in an attempt to discern the future it can feel almost like an out-of-body experience. Sometimes the experience is so real that you are not surprised to discover that the event actually did take place. Soul walking while in a dream-like state is more common than you think. The dreamer can actually visit another physical location and hear and see everything that is going on. They can also visit another plane of existence remotely and meet with those that are still on the nine realms of the Astral Plane. Sometimes this event occurs in preparation for new lifetimes or for fortification of the souls connection.

Premonitions

Predicting future events can be a little arduous. Especially if the dreams are of events involve a catastrophic event. In the case of tragic premonitions they might be better called nightmares. Sometimes this phenomenon takes the form of messages from spirits or people that have passed. Intuition that is activated while someone is sleeping doesn’t always have to be about impending doom, death or human or natural tragedies. It can bring forth many positive and upcoming events in a persons life. It can provide a small window for the dreamer so that they may prepare for a new cycle or soul lessons. The strange thing about precognition dreams is that they often reoccur. It may be a sign of a precognition dream if you have this experience more than three times.

Telepathic Dreams

Images, thoughts and feelings transmitted from person-to-person are sometimes sent through dreams. Telepathic dreams are best described as, one person “tapping” into another. In almost every case, only those that are very close emotionally and have souls that are linked are able to send images and emotions to another can participate in this type of dreaming. Dreams that are manifested by telepathy are often transmitted by Twin Flames or soulmates. This type of high level communications is usually multi-dimensional. A non-verbal language of images and thoughts most often connects when one of the two is sleeping. One person “taps” into another through a focused projection of energy. This process is mostly subconscious. The dream can feel so real that the person that is receiving the infusion of energy may physically feel it. Keep in mind that sometimes these dreams are intentionally sent but most of the not. On other occasions there is no conscious effort involved. This expresses a true soul connection.

Insightful Dreams

This is where a person gains knowledge far beyond their own lifetime. Visionaries and spiritual leaders often gain insights in their dreams that are greater than the wisdom of the current world. Nostradamus is said to have received great insight of events that would happen centuries after his death. Mediums, healer and psychics can have multitudes or Insightful dreams throughout their lifetimes as their connection to the other side is very strong. Everyone though is gifted with this type of dreaming and it can enhance and elevate our waking consciousness.

Shared Dreams

When the same dream is shared by two or more people it is usually a vision of things to come. Sometimes precognitive dreams can be shared across a large groups of people. When you wake up from a shared dream it can leave you anxious and confused. You may have anxiety of a feeling of shakiness. When many people share one dream it can drive you to connect with the other dreamers. A shared dream that occurs especially recurring dreams can cause disruptions in the sleep patterns. It may be difficult to sleep for fear of having the dream again.

Recurring Dreams

Recurring dreams are those that one repeatedly experiences or views. The frequency of this event may vary, the details of the dreams may alter, but the overall theme remains the same. Also, these recurring dreams may not always make sense to the person experiencing them. For others, it may seem like a chapter of their lives being replayed. We may see familiar faces, or scenes, or encounter unseen landscapes and sights. People have a tendency of acknowledging recurring dreams if they happen to be disturbing enough, or startling enough. Recurring dreams that are normal and happy seldom get the kind of attention and analysis that the former ones do, and only manage to leave a silly smile plastered to our face all day. Psychologists and researchers say that these dreams are experienced when our subconscious tries to establish contact with our conscious mind. These dreams are useful, precious even, when it comes to resolving any issues or conflicts that may be niggling us in the back of our minds. These could include familial strife, abandoned relationships, unrequited love, or even past life memories. Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung proposed that recurring dreams were vital for the integration of the psyche, whereas the Culturalist dream theory tells us that such dreams are an indication of a lack of positive change in the individual. The Gestalts’ dream theory draws a conclusion that recurring dreams indicate an imbalance, and should be seen as a means to restore a sense of balance to life.

Nightmares

Nightmares are very lengthy and elaborate dreams with imagery that can evoke fear, anxiety and emotional pain. The dreamer may wake up to avoid what could be perceived danger at the ending of the nightmare. Nightmares can be remembered upon awakening and may lead to difficulties returning to sleep or even cause daytime distress. Isolated nightmares are normal but when nightmares that bring extreme terror or anxiety recur often they can become a debilitating sleep disorder. This type of dream occurs during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. A nightmare is a dream that can occur as a result of feelings of anxiety, fear, grief and emotional pain. This type of dream tends to happen in the later part of the night and can often cause someone to wake up suddenly. An individual often remembers this type of dream in great detail and it can stay with someone for weeks, months or years.

Most nightmares are natural reactions to daily stress and sometimes trauma. Some believe it is how human beings work through painful events in their lives. Repeating nightmares can become a medical disorder when they begin to impair functioning in our daily lives. Nightmares tend to be more common in girls than boys and usually begin in childhood before age of 12 and are considered normal unless they significantly interfere with sleep, development, or psychosocial development. They may continue into adulthood where they are often associated with outside stressors, anxiety, or trauma. They may also exist alongside another mental disorder. A closer look at dreaming can help understand nightmares.

Dream interpretation is an at once an art and a science. There are common symbols and meanings in many dreams. For example; who hasn’t had a fear of falling? This is a common dream shared by millions if not billions of people. In dream interpretation this dream is associated with anxiety and losing control. Falling dreams also often reflect a sense of failure or inferiority in some waking circumstance or situation. Dream journals are an excellent way to learn what your dreams mean. Through psychic dreams we can sometimes find out about events that are yet to come. The irony is that the only way to be certain if your dream is a true foretelling of the future is to wait and see if it unfolds as you saw it in your dream.

Dream Dictionary

https://cafeausoul.com/dreams/dreamdictionary

Tips for Getting a Good Night’s Sleep

Setting a Sleep Schedule

Try to go to bed at a specific time every night and get up at the same time each morning. Disrupting this schedule may lead to insomnia. Sleeping in on weekends makes it harder to wake up early on Monday morning as it resets your sleep cycles for a later awakening.

Getting Plenty of Exercise

Try to exercise 20 to 50 minutes per day. Daily exercise often helps people sleep although a workout before bedtime may have an adverse effect. For maximum effect work out about five to six hours before going to bed.

Limit Caffeine, Nicotine, and Alcohol

Limit drinks that contain caffeine, a stimulant. Sources of caffeine include coffee, chocolate, diet drugs, soft drinks, non-herbal teas, and some pain relievers. Smokers tend to sleep very lightly and often wake up in the early morning due to nicotine withdrawal. Alcohol robs people of deep sleep and REM sleep so people who drink also sleep only very lightly.

Relax Before Bed

A warm bath, reading a favorite book or another soothing routine can make it easier to fall sleep. You can train yourself to associate certain restful activities with sleep and make them part of your bedtime ritual.

Make Sure your Sheets, Pillows and Comforters are Freshly Washed Weekly

Fresh linens and bedding are very important in a good nights sleep. There is nothing like sheets straight out of the dryer. It is not only good hygiene but can also keep allergies and breathing in check.

Sleep Until the Sunlight Comes In

If possible in your daily schedule wake up with the sun. You can also use very bright lights in the morning. Sunlight helps the body’s internal clock reset itself daily. Sleep experts recommend exposure to an hour of morning sunlight for people having sleep issues.

Don’t Lie in Bed Awake

If you can’t fall asleep try not to stay in bed. Do something else such as reading or listening to music until you feel tired enough to drift off. The anxiety of being unable to fall asleep can actually contribute to insomnia.

Control the Room Temperature

Maintain a comfortable temperature in the bedroom. Extreme heat or cold may disrupt sleep or prevent you from falling asleep. Keep a bit of fresh air coming into the room for stabilization and balance.

See a doctor if your sleeping problem continues

If you have trouble falling asleep every night or if you always feel tired the next day then you may have a sleep disorder and should see a physician. Your primary care physician may be able to help you or you can consult a sleep specialist at a major hospital near you. Most sleep disorders can be treated effectively. Researchers now know that sleep is an active and dynamic state that strongly influences our waking hours. Innovative techniques such as brain imaging can assist researchers in understanding how different brain regions function during sleep and how activities and disorders affect sleep.

Much remains unknown about human beings and dreams. They are by nature difficult to study in a laboratory setting because they can be transient. Sleep studies are making great strides to help us understand the nature of sleep and dreams. Our dreams can be our secret windows to our souls with respect to our spiritual and earthly lives. Keeping a dream diary can be very helpful in interpreting your souls journey while awake. I like to think of dreams as a nighttime mirror. Our sunlight into the darkness. When our luminous body is permitted to sometimes detach from our physical body and explore regions and vibrations that remain veiled during the lighted hours.

Blessings

Kate