What Are Dream Really Made Of?

 

 What Are Dream Reall

 What Are Dream Really Made Of?y Made Of?

Dreams are the most bizarre and elusive things. They can leave you feeling like the surrealist painter Salvador Dali while they last, but when they're gone, all you have left is an empty bed, half-formed memories of some bizarre place with too many colors and sounds.

What are dreams made of? It's hard to say. Scientists think that dreams come from a mix of chemicals that your body produces during REM sleep (a stage in which our brains have more brain activity) combined with the thoughts we had throughout the day that we may not have put into words or acted on but still sort-of knew about unconsciously. Dreams have been reported to form in response to stress, some of which can be detected on a PET scan as biological activity in the area of the brain associated with processing and expressing emotion.

Our brains are full of synapses that fire when we're awake and come online during sleep, so it makes sense for dreams to take place at night. Dreams also seem wired toward making us sad, since sadness is a common emotion experienced by most people during REM sleep (we're all in love with our dreams). Dreams are often replayed throughout the day in the form of strange manifestations; talking dogs, missing socks, strange companions and more. Our minds often find ways to make sense out of it all long after we wake up.

Dreams can be some of the most confusing things we have to deal with. They're often illogical and don't always make sense - we say things in our dreams that we never would in waking life, like ordering pizza when we won the lottery or being in love with a person who's dead. The implications of our dreams are often so vast that they leave us questioning all aspects of existence. Some psychologists even think that our dreams are somehow clues to the future; lucid dreamers report seeing visions of their future as though it were already happening in real life, which can sometimes cause mundane problems (like finding a missing sock).

We don't have a solid idea of what dreams are made of, but the clues we've picked up from the most bizarre inner workings of our minds seem to suggest that dreams are a concoction of memories, emotions and our own personal experiences. While they may not have any significance to our waking lives, or point us toward an apocalyptic event, they're still interesting and worth exploring.

Article: What Are Dreams Made Of? [ARTICLE END]

Where Do Our Dreams Come From? - [PAGE NOT FOUND]

If you have any questions regarding this article or would like more information related to this topic, I invite you to post a comment using the form below. I will respond in a timely manner. I appreciate the time you took to read this and look forward to hearing from you. --Sincerely, Bill Davis

--This is a guest post by Bill Davis. Bill is a licensed psychologist who lives and works in China. He is happily married with three lovely daughters that keep him busy when he's not working as a counselor or attending therapy conferences. Feel free to visit his  LinkedIn   page for more of his work, or connect with him on Facebook . --This blog post was originally published at Dr4Dad . Please visit the original post to comment and interact.

Anonymous said...

Found this to be very fascinating, thanks. We are not really sure what dreams are made of, and we probably can never know [in fact the people who originally discovered this "dream state" have died]. Even our dreams seem to melt away when we wake up. But still, it is interesting. Anonymous said...

So is the internet for all intents and purposes no longer a dream? The possibilities are so strong that I feel as if I have woken from one. The internet as a "dream" or future development was an idea I'd always sort of thought of because it was so new, but never actually considered that it's in essence very possible for the internet to redefine reality. Anonymous said...

This is extremely accurate, and I'm not sure why. I get this feeling often, even now. Maybe it's the internet?  It's really strange how technology has changed our lives so much and we still don't know what dreams are made of, nor why they elude us when we wake up. So many things are still a mystery and will always be so.  I love that. And I love to read a good blog post like this! Anonymous said...

I can't believe this hasn't been discussed in Philosophy class yet! It seems obvious, but you have to think about it a while before it sinks it. Anonymous said...

So you're saying if we had different "dream" chemicals in our brains, we'd have different dreams? Or does that say that our dreams are based on the chemicals, not vice versa? Anonymous said...

I think that dreams actually reflect our unconscious wishes. The way it usually happens is during the day you hear a song or see something or read something and wonder what it means, then later that night your brain brings up those ideas. And in the morning you go "ohh, that was what I was trying to tell myself yesterday. It's interesting because it shows that dreams aren't just your subconscious randomly throwing stuff at you, they're trying to tell you something. From what I've read the reason we can't remember our dreams is because of a process called "dream amnesia", which is when we are dreaming and wake up so rarely do we ever actually wake up enough to notice it happening. In this case the fact that its happening means you're probably going from a bad dream to a good one, since it's easier to be happy in your dreams. --A Anonymous said...

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About Bill Davis, Licensed Psychologist

Bill Davis is a licensed psychologist and psychotherapist who lives and works in China. Bill is happily married with three lovely daughters that keep him busy when he's not working as a counselor or attending therapy conferences. Feel free to visit his LinkedIn page for more of his work, or connect with him on Facebook . --This blog post was originally posted at Dr4Dad . Please visit the original post to comment and interact.

I don't know if I ever said it before, but the internet is a "dream" from a technological perspective. I mean it's really something we can't yet imagine and we're still just scratching the surface of what it brings us. The possibilities are so strong that I feel as if I have woken from one. The internet as a "dream" or future development was an idea I'd always sort of thought of because it was so new, but never actually considered that it's in essence very possible for the internet to redefine reality. Anonymous said...

Conclusion

I think that dreams actually reflect our unconscious wishes. The way it usually happens is during the day you hear a song or see something or read something and wonder what it means, then later that night your brain brings up those ideas. And in the morning you go "ohh, that was what I was trying to tell myself yesterday. It's interesting because it shows that dreams aren't just your subconscious randomly throwing stuff at you, they're trying to tell you something. From what I've read the reason we can't remember our dreams is because of a process called "dream amnesia", which is when we are dreaming and wake up so rarely do we ever actually wake up enough to notice it happening.