The Science Behind: Dreams

By: Faith W.

After finishing all your homework and deciding to put your laptop away, you drift over into another dimension…dreamland! In here, you can be and do anything: a fairy, a pirate, a pirate-fairy swimming through space on a mission from a pigeon. You’d think scientists would want to learn everything about the science behind dreams immediately. You wouldn’t be wrong, but we don’t have a concrete answer quite yet.

Before I get into the hypotheses, allow me to give some background. Sleep occurs in four stages. There are three non-rapid eye movement (NREM) stages varying in length from one minute to forty. The first two are when sleep is the lightest, then the cycle progresses to the third NREM in which the person is in deep sleep. Rapid eye movement begins. It physically manifests in exactly the way you’d assume; their eyes remain closed but move rapidly. This step contains the most dreaming.

Dreams are categorized into several types. Lucid dreaming describes a person being aware of themselves dreaming and can sometimes alter their choices in their dreams. Vivid dreams contain realistic scenarios with clear imagery. Recurring dreams involve similar images and plots over a series of several sleep cycles.

Sleep experts have several working theories about the purpose of dreaming: building memory, processing emotions, incidental brain activity, etc. Dreaming can aid in strengthening and filing memories into your metaphorical memory bank. Rehearsing and filtering through emotions of any intensity may be a result of dreams. Then, of course, there’s the possibility that dreams mean nothing and have no purpose. However, I’m an optimist; I’d like to believe dreams are essential to life, and numerous psychologists back my opinion. No matter your opinion on dreams…sleep tight and remember: Science—there’s an explanation for everything.