[Laith (OP)]

I have  couple of questions about dreaming
the first one is, what exactly is dreaming and why do we dream? i saw in a documentary once that "dreaming is like defragmenting your brain", and in it they conducted some experiments and conculded that people that dreamt did better in tests, or if you dreamt about your exam you'll do better than if you didn't. (http://www.pbs.org/saf/previous.htm  but not sure which one of them sorry, check out the website if you dont know it and if you want to watch an episode click on the small eye icon)

the second question is about people born blind, do they dream? do they see colours or do they hear sounds in their dreams instead?

Laith

[Hadrian]

The truth is no one actually knows for cretin why we dream. Some have speculated that it is a subconscious arena for working out repressed emotions. It seams clear that prolong lack of dream sleep has a cumulative negative affect but it not consistent or predictable. Medication can disrupt dream sleep but there is confusion over whether it is the medication or the lack of dreaming that lead to any reported stress or emotional side effect.  Anecdotal based research into dreams seam show that we use the memory system as its structure for creating dreams. It may well be that this relative random storage system and its ability to alter data is why are dreams can be so surreal. It is the function of how our mind works. Especially in creativity. When we hop from one track of thought to another our mind will construct a logical path between them. This often gives rise to a wonder why we did not think of that before effect. It may be that dreams serve to link bits of memory to other memories to complete the learning as it were and we experience it as a dream.

As our dreams are a product of our mind then if we are unable to perceive images then we will not be able to access them. Some people who lost sight in very early life have reported be able to see vague colour or shadows while dreaming.


What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

[harryneild]

Dreaming has got something to do with sort of revising the things you have learnt in the day. A study carried out made people use a certain part of their brains in an activity for most of the day. While they were sleeping this area was most active showing that it is probably making the links stronger between the neural nets etc. So i think it is essential for learning and developement.

Also there is a drug called Modafinil which allows the user to stay awake for about 72 hours, then sleep for 8 hours and return to normal. There is no backlog of sleep to catch up and there are no known serious side effects. Interesting.


"Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes." Peter F. Drucker

[Karen W.]

Its a funny thing dreaming. You ever heard the term, " I'll have to sleep on it." Well If you have a problem you are trying to solve I have always put it in my head right before bed, you know maybe you are trying to remember a phrase or someones name, anything like that. I lie down and start saying to my self, how do I do that? Or, who was that? Or, what should I do to fix this problem? Wham! I concentrate real hard and sure enough It comes to me in my dream, either the answer or the fix. I always jump up and write it down as I know I won't remember if I keep sleeping. I keep paper and pens next to my bed solely for this purpose. I believe our dreams can really aid us, by allowing our minds to relax enough to unincumber our thoughts to find the answer we really already had but had burried in our subconscience. Our minds are sometimes so overwhelmed with other things that sometimes that down time is very important to our thought processes. I love to dream and don't always remember mine but I do pay special attention to the ones that are indictive of helping me through a dilima or a tough time.

[fm47]

I've personally catagorized dreams into three sections.

1) Analyzing Dreams
2) Enlightment Dreams
3) Given Dreams

Analyzing Dreams - Dreams you experience through the analysis of your environment and experience.  The "defragmentation" part.

Enlightment Dreams - Dreams where someone or something is trying to acknowledge you of information or idea.

Given Dreams - Dreams given to you by unknown forces.  Unlike Enlightment dreams, where a force enters or conjures a dream, Given dreams are literally "given" to you, like a movie you have to watch.

[Laith (OP)]

I found the episode, here's the link if your interested, it has all the experiments i mentioned
http://www.pbs.org/perl/media.cgir?t=w&f=virage/scientific/pbssaf703_220k.asf&s=1853733&e=2666900

Laith

[Monox D. I-Fly]

I've personally catagorized dreams into three sections.

1) Analyzing Dreams
2) Enlightment Dreams
3) Given Dreams

Analyzing Dreams - Dreams you experience through the analysis of your environment and experience.  The "defragmentation" part.

Enlightment Dreams - Dreams where someone or something is trying to acknowledge you of information or idea.

Given Dreams - Dreams given to you by unknown forces.  Unlike Enlightment dreams, where a force enters or conjures a dream, Given dreams are literally "given" to you, like a movie you have to watch.

I also categorize dreams to 3 types, but they're different from yours:
1. Casual dream = Dream without meaning or purpose, just randomly happens
2. Symbolic dream = Dream which symbolizes what will happen in a near future
3. Vision dream = Dream that will eventually happen

[yor_on]

Ahhh Karen :)

So perfectly spot on. It's what I would call a 'shamanistic' technique that you use there.
I know it's too late looking at the date you wrote it but...