Dream Diary

What is Dream?

Dreams are images, ideas, emotions and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during sleep. They can last from as little as a few seconds to as long as 20 minutes, and the average person has at least three to five, and often many more, dreams a night (dreams typically occupy a total of about two hours of a normal nights sleep). Dreams can occur in almost all stages of sleep, but they are most common during REM sleep (REM sleep: Rapid Eye Movement sleep, the part of sleep cycle characterized by rapid and random eye movement, high frequency brain waves), particularly towards the end of the sleep period, and the dreams experienced during this sleep stage tend to be more vivid, detailed, memorable and often bizarre. Dreams are always egocentric, involving ourselves as a principal character.

Purpose of Dream

The real purpose or function of dreams is still not entirely understood, and precisely why we dream remains one of the great unanswered questions of behavioral science. Though it is often accepted that dreams help us to regulate, analyze, explain and remember recent events in our lives, in a kind of "mental housekeeping" process. Many experts say that dreams exist to help solve problems in our lives, incorporate memories, process emotions. Dreams help us to resolve any emotional problems and inconsistencies arising from our daily activities, as well as aiding in mood regulation.

Types of Dream

Dreams can be of different types. Some of them include-

1. Recurring Dreams: One of the most interesting dreaming phenomena, recurring dreams
are those dreams that we have over and over again. These dreams may be happy, exciting, boring, or even scary, but we have them for a reason. Recurring dreams often point to unresolved issues that we have yet to deal with. And the odds are that one will continue to have
recurring dream until they deal with those root causes.

2. Daydreams: We spend a good part of our lives day dreaming, and much like in a sleep dream state, daydreams allow for a deeper connection with our subconscious thoughts and feelings. Studies reveal that the average person daydreams for a whopping 70-120 minutes of their waking day. During daydreams, one is semi-awake. Clearly not asleep - but not fully checked-in with reality, either. A daydream starts with a compelling thought, memory or fantasy, and the imagination runs away. The longer you daydream, the deeper one becomes immersed in own private fantasy land.

3. Normal Dreams: Normal dreams are the dreams in which one has no idea that they are dreaming. These normal dreams are experienced by everyone, and are essential to our emotional and physical health.

4. False Awakenings: False awakenings are basically very vivid types of dreams. They are essentially dreams in which one think oneself wake up. In these dreams one may be dreaming one thing and then apparently awaken. The difference here is that the waking dream one is experiencing is still, in fact, a dream.

5. Nightmares: Nightmares are unpleasant dreams with particularly vivid and disturbing content, usually accompanied by a strong negative emotional response (e.g. fear, horror, despair, anxiety, sadness, etc.). Sufferers may wake from nightmares in some distress, usually with a good recall of the dreams content, and they may be unable to get back to sleep for some time. Although by some estimates at least 40%, and perhaps as much as 75%, of normal dream content is actually negative in nature, a nightmare bad enough to wake someone up in the middle of a sleep cycle usually only occurs about once a month on average.

6. Lucid Dreams: Lucid dreams are dreams in which, contrary to the normal situation, the sleeper is actually aware of dreaming, or at least that some event taking place in the dream cannot possibly be really happening. These dreams are generally extremely realistic and vivid.

Why Do We Forget Dreams?

It is still not known for sure why dreams are easily forgotten. Maybe we are designed to forget our dreams because if we remembered all our dreams, we might not be able to distinguish dreams from real memories. Some say our minds don't actually forget dreams, we just don't know how to access them. Dreams may be stored in our memory, waiting to be recalled. This notion may explain why you may suddenly remember a dream later in the day -- something may have happened to trigger the memory.

Happy Dreaming !!!