Dream

What is a Dream?

        Let's get started by introducing the theory of dreams. Dreams: successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The theory of dreams is:

Wish Fulfillment- Any dream, no matter how terrifying, can be looked at as a way of getting something that you want, either literally or symbolically.

An accidental side-effect of random neural impulses- A dream's subject matter is deeply meaningful. They can reveal wishes or emotions you didn't realize you had.

Encoding short-term memories into long-term storage- Refers to the idea that our brains are always storing memories regardless of whether we're awake or asleep.

Garbage Collection- We dream to get rid of undesirable connections and associations that build up in our brains throughout the day.

Consolidating what we've learned- We actually dream to remember rather than forget.

An evolutionary outgrowth of the "playing dead" defense mechanism- Brain behaves much the way it does when you're awake, with a crucial difference: chemicals like dopamine associated with movement and body activation are completely shut down.

Threat simulation- "The biological function of dreaming is to simulate threatening events, and to rehearse threat perception and threat avoidance." (Antii Revonusuo)

Problem solving- (Deirdre Barrett) suggests that dreams are more effectively than when we are awake — partly because the dreaming mind makes connections more quickly than the waking mind does

Oneiric Darwinism- Idea of solving problems in our sleep is itself a kind of Darwinian process.

Processing painful emotions with symbolic associations- Dreaming suggests we are aggressively mutating our ideas, or weeding out maladaptive emotions, a new model of dreaming suggests that the process is more like therapy than evolution.

(http://io9.com/10-theories-that-explain-why-we-dream-897195110)

        Those are the main ten ideas of why we dream, how we dream, and what we dream about. You see? Dreaming can be a good thing and a bad thing. In my personal opinion, I think that dreams are either living stories, or your imagination running wild. You could have risks dreaming nightly. If you keep a "dream journal", you can type anything and everything that you have experienced in your dream. I have one, his name is Oscar. I don't know why I named him, but knowing that I have someone to talk to about everything known to my heart and soal. It feels great. If one dreams, then they have experimented something that could be a blessing, but a god forsaken sin.

        Closing your eyes of a night signifies you are finished with the day and you wish for a better tomorrow. Dreaming about memories, future events, relentless information about something you understand, etc...If you break it down, you can understand dreams that are "scary" could be "Nightmares" or "Night Terrors" That could be true, but you do also have to realize that dreams can be so realistic, that you can describe the setting in fine detail and describe the situation and the reason you're there. If you think and did some research about it, then you can understand why I am so persistent about my dreams. In the next chapter, I will share with you one of the most tragic night terrors, dreams, and nightmares I have experienced.