What’s going on in your head Dreams are defined as a series of images, thoughts, emotions, ideas, and sensations by Na’Syr Jackson
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ccording to Sleep Foundation’s website, “Since Sigmund Freud helped draw attention to the potential importance of dreams in the late 19th century, considerable research has worked to unravel both the neuroscience and psychology of dreams. Despite this advancing scientific knowledge, there is much that remains unknown about both sleep and dreams. Even the most fundamental question — why do we dream at all? — is still subject to significant debate.” Experts in the field have many theories about the why, including dreams being necessary for humans to review and analyze specific events and process emotions, or building up memory and clearing away unnecessary information in our heads. Incidentally, dreams could be nothing more than a random event that occurs during our sleep and serves no greater purpose. Additionally, we only dream anywhere between just a few seconds versus minutes at a time, but this happens multiple times a night being anywhere between four to six dreams, on average, at a time. Most dreams are also quickly forgotten upon waking up, with any meaningful recollection usually
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happening after waking up during the REM phase, the time when most dreams happen and the deepest stage of sleep.
Senior Katie Hasenecz said, “I don’t normally dream, but for the past few months I’ve been having a lot of really vivid dreams. Almost every night I’ve been having super weird dreams that feel unusually real.” Other types of dreams include lucid dreaming, a specific instance of dreaming where the dreamer is aware of their ‘awareness’ and that they are in a dream. Like regular dreams, lucid dreams also occur more often than not during the REM cycle, however more interestingly, aside from being aware of the dream state lucid dreams usually allow the dreamer some form of control over the dream itself.
| january 2021ufeature
