We dream every day, pushing open the door of dreams, as if we had entered another dimensional world. The people and things we saw, heard and thought during the day seemed to put on another mask in our dreams and came to the party in the evening in order. In the dream, we go to strange scenes and participate in strange plots. Every time we wake up, we can't help thinking, why do we have such a wonderful dream? Why did you dream about him? Why did he do this in his dream? Do these dreams have any moral?
What is even more puzzling is why some dreams are done continuously, and even the plots can be connected; Other dreams will be repeated every once in a while. Why? Does our consciousness determine the content of dreams, or does our subconscious dreams guide us to think?
In life, we often hear such a dialogue: "I slept well yesterday and had no dreams for a night." "I had a long dream last night, very realistic, and now I still feel immersive!" "You are so lucky. I am in pain. I don't know why I had all kinds of strange dreams last night. I'm exhausted! "
Most people spend about one-third of their lives in sleep, and dreaming accounts for about one-fifth of their sleep time. According to the measurement of human brain waves and body temperature, scientists have found that people will go through five sleep stages during sleep, which form a sleep cycle lasting about 90 minutes. At night, people's sleep state changes from shallow to deep, and from deep to shallow. With dreaming, the sleep cycle will probably produce 4-6 cycles. That is to say, under normal circumstances, people dream every night, with 1 multiple dreams, with an average of 4-6 dreams. However, under the circumstances of great pressure, fatigue and psychological anxiety, it is easier to dream.
It is found that in a certain sleep stage, the frequency of human brain waves becomes faster and the amplitude becomes lower, and at the same time, it is characterized by increased heart rate, increased blood pressure and muscle relaxation. The strangest thing is that the eyes keep swinging from side to side, which is called rapid eye movement sleep (REM sleep for short), also called heterogeneous sleep. The study also found that the human brain is extremely active in REM sleep, which will produce a lot of dreams. At this time, the state of the brain and body is very close to that when people are awake. If disturbed, they will wake up easily. If they are dreaming, when they wake up, they will remember those dreams. Although people dream during REM sleep, they usually don't remember the contents of their dreams when they wake up naturally. Most of the dreams that people remember after waking up belong to the last dream; As for those who complain about poor sleep and dream all night, they actually only wake up after many dreams.
After waking up from a dream, the brain still clearly remembers the interrupted dream. If people subconsciously want to continue this interrupted dream and want to know what will be broken down next time, then when they wake up briefly and enter the next sleep cycle, they may repeat some scenes of the dream just now, or even continue this dream.
Another situation is that some people suddenly realize that they are dreaming when they are dreaming, and then they will control their dreams. This dream is called lucid dream, also called lucid dream, which was put forward by Dutch doctor Frederic van Eden in 19 13. In a lucid dream, you can freely control your own actions and the actions of others in the dream, and the plot content in the dream is dominated by your will. Stephen LaBerge, a psychologist at Stanford University, has repeatedly used scientific methods to reveal the relationship between lucid dreams and REM sleep in his decades of research. Therefore, if the dreamer controls his dream in multiple REM stages in one night, there will be a phenomenon of continuous dreaming, which is equivalent to Inception's meaning.
The same dream, the same knot
Is the dream you remember just a souvenir of death that the dreamer happened to rescue? Some people may be unconvinced and ask, why have I been having the same dream for so many years?
Psychologist Freud believes that dreams are not a simple reprocessing and reorganization of death memories, but a satisfaction of subconscious desires. People can effectively suppress the subconscious when they are awake, so that those ideas that violate reality and moral customs cannot be implemented; However, when people go to sleep, their brains are in a state of relaxation, and some wishes and ideas will avoid the scrutiny and repression of the subconscious mind, secretly emerge and be expressed in various plots and images.
Dream is a substitute of human desire, which embodies the emotion buried deep in the subconscious. They are the main way to release depression and experience dream satisfaction in the form of fantasy.
If you have a dream repeatedly, it means that the dreamer may have a knot in his heart for a long time, also called complex. This theme is directly related to emotions, mostly reflected in the psychology of "hope to be recognized" or "anxiety". A typical example is the dream of "examination". People often say that many years after the college entrance examination, they will still dream of returning to the examination room of the college entrance examination and dreaming that they are answering questions. After careful inquiry, it will be found that they are usually either dissatisfied with their graduation colleges and qualifications, or anxious about their career prospects.
In reality, they can't make any big changes, but psychologically, they hope to re-take the college entrance examination, re-select their favorite universities and re-select their majors with career prospects. Maybe everything will be different, and this idea has been reflected and satisfied in their dreams.
On the other hand, dreaming about "exams" may also mean that dreamers are anxious about some aspects of their current lives. In students' life, they may often worry about exams. Subconsciously, they have linked "exam" with "anxiety", so once they have anxiety, they may dream about exams at night.
For another example, some people often dream about their first love, the old house where they lived as children, and the loving old friend. For such dreams, finding a knot can relieve their emotions well.
Continuous dreaming is the embodiment of psychological growth process.
What is even more bizarre is the continuous dream, which is not a continuous night, but a period of time, days, months or even years apart. The theme of each dream is similar, but it promotes the progressive development in the plot, just like a series. It's amazing!
Psychologically speaking, this continuous dream implies that you may have a long-term unsolved problem in your heart, or to some extent, it reflects your psychological growth process. Psychologist Jung once said: "If you compare 20 or 100 dreams, then you can see something interesting." You will see the persistence of the unconscious spirit that is expanding day and night. " Record and compare your dreams, and you will find that there may be some unsolved problems hidden in your dreams, and even some core tips. If you analyze them carefully, you will also see the changing process of your psychological growth.
Someone once told her continuous dreams. The first dream is that she lives alone in the forest with a domesticated wolf beside her. A few years later, she dreamed that she left the forest and went far away, but the wolf stayed in the forest; When she grew up, she dreamed of the wolf again, but it grew taller and bigger. It left the forest to look for her in the city. After analysis, we will find that these continuous dreams represent the psychological development and growth process of the dreamer.
It turns out that she was fostered in her grandmother's house since she was a child, and she was very lonely inside. The wolf in her dream is actually an image in her heart. When she was a child, she wanted a friend to accompany her. A few years later, she was taken back to the city by her parents, and her childhood with her grandmother made her still attached to her grandmother's family. A few years later, she grew up, became more mature and adapted to city life, and hoped to achieve her life goals here. This reflects the psychological process of the dreamer growing up from a lonely little girl and the important psychological changes in different stages of life.
Dreams are a reflection of real life. For this kind of continuous dream, it is suggested that the dreamer make detailed records and comparisons, and maybe you will find out what information your dream is conveying to you.
People simulate a crisis in their dreams.
Except those dreams that are closely related to people and things in real life, some dreams are completely divorced from reality, and the plot is not beautiful at all, even a little thrilling, such as being hunted down, kidnapped by monsters, attacked by terrorists, and losing loved ones. Finally, we are usually awakened by these nightmares and scared into a cold sweat; Or wake up crying and find the pillow wet.
Why do people have such horrible nightmares for no reason? Psychologists believe that nightmares are a preview of how the brain handles dangerous situations in a virtual environment, where people conduct various safety trainings. According to statistics, people have 300 to 1000 nightmares every year.
This "crisis simulation theory" was first put forward by Finnish neuroscientist Antti Revonsuo. He believes that dreaming has its biological adaptation function, and dreaming can make our ancestors rehearse in advance to deal with the danger from the real world. Ravensu said that we dream of being hunted down and falling from the sky because these are the portrayal of the crisis our ancestors encountered in ancient times. Recently, several psychologists from the University of Montreal in Canada further explained and elaborated this theory.
In a study published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition in 2006, they analyzed the contents of more than 200 recurring nightmares. Escape and chase are the most common themes, followed by accidents and misfortunes, attacks and violence, and then physical defects. In these repeated dreams, dreamers describe themselves as people in danger. In these dreams, they will make every effort to get out of trouble, escape from danger or overcome threats.
They believe that the dream-making mechanism will choose the crisis events we encounter when we are awake, and then simulate them repeatedly in dreams in various combinations to stimulate the sense of crisis and simulate the countermeasures. This is because dreams are an ideal and safe environment for us to practice crisis coping strategies repeatedly.
Dream, as a mysterious phenomenon, has attracted many academic scholars to study and discuss it, although masters and scholars have done a lot of research, given various explanations of evolution and put forward various theories and theories about dreams. But so far, we still haven't completely solved the mystery of dreams. We don't know why humans dream, whether dreams are conscious or unconscious, or even just a bunch of meaningless pieces of information, or is it really another soul world? All this needs further study by scientists and scholars. As a dreamer, after spending the busy real world during the day, it is a wonderful experience to think that I will rush to a fascinating or thrilling unknown dream every night.
What kind of dreams will you have tonight?