Dreams are precursors and extensions of reality

Dreams are precursors and extensions of reality

Sleep is one of the essential activities of human life, 1/3 of the time spent in sleep, in sleep, there are always dreams accompanied. So, what do we mean by dreams that are closely related to us? In fact, our dreams are closely related to rapid eye movement sleep, a light state of sleep that occurs late in sleep and is characterized by rapid horizontal eye movement, pons stimulation, increased breathing and heart rate, and temporary limb paralysis. Most dreams occur during this stage of sleep. Dreams can also occur during other stages of sleep, but they are less common. Most scientists believe that all humans dream. Therefore, if a person feels that he has no dreams or only one dream in a night, it is because his memory of those dreams has disappeared. This 'memory erasure' usually occurs when a person transitions naturally and gently from REM sleep through slow-wave sleep to wakefulness. If a person is awakened directly from REM sleep (for example, by an alarm clock), they are more likely to remember dreams from that period of REM sleep (although not all dreams that occur during REM sleep will be remembered, because there is an interlude between REM periods of slow-wave sleep, which causes memory of the previous dream to disappear).

Dream is a kind of image language. These images range from the mundane to the surreal, and in fact, dreams often inspire things like art. A dream, also a subjective experience, is an imagined image, sound, thought or feeling that occurs during sleep, usually involuntarily. The science of dreams is usually called dreamology.

After research, real dreams have only been directly confirmed in human beings, indicating that dreams are unique to human beings, and through the analysis of dreams, people's conditions can be interpreted and even the future can be revealed. So why do people dream? From the perspective of modern psychology, different psychological theories have different answers. According to psychoanalytic theory, dreams are the reflection of repressed impulses or desires in the subconscious mind. The physiological point of view is that the essence of dreams is our subjective experience of random neural activity in the brain, possibly the result of some nerve cell activity caused by some stimulus. According to the cognitive theory, the function of dreams is to re-encode and integrate the individual's perceptual and behavioral experience, which is to continue the cognitive process of waking. It is often said: 'day to think, night to dream.'

Whatever the theory, however, it is clear that dreams are an extension of reality.

Why do you say that? Let's start with a dream example:

I stuck it on the wall of something that had been lifted up, and I realized that it was a white sedan chair that carried the bride (this sedan chair was actually something I had seen in a movie). I was covered by a sheet of white plastic so that no one could notice me, but I could see underneath it a man in white carrying a sedan chair. I tried to get out of the membrane, but I was afraid I'd be discovered. I struggled to free myself, but I did not feel the tremor of the sedan chair. Now I stopped struggling, and since it was the bride in the sedan chair, why shouldn't I listen to her voice? Sure enough, a woman's muffled yawn was heard. Suddenly, I saw a fast moving truck in front of me, and the people carrying the sedan chair seemed not to see it, and kept moving forward, I struggled desperately, and then woke up.

The dreamer explained, 'This dream may have something to do with my afternoon observation of motor vehicles on the street.' During the afternoon traffic jam, more than 20 cars were forced to stop on the street. I woke up many times while dreaming, but as soon as I fell asleep I went back to dreaming and stayed half asleep for a long time.'

It is clear that in this dream there are three progressively complex associative series of information flows.

The dreamer's association (conversion or modification) of the 'motor vehicle' into a sedan chair to carry the bride (the sedan chair in the dream is actually a distorted reflection of the motor vehicle), they can have associations, probably because in the absence of conscious judgment, 'motor vehicle' and 'sedan chair' belong to the subconscious information flow system of 'car'. Although the two 'cars' are very different in terms of appearance and use.

When the motor vehicle is transformed into a sedan chair, the dream is related to the subliminal information movement within this small system (without this transformation, the dreamer may dream of what he has experienced that afternoon), and then there is the sedan chair (carrying the bride) → the bearer → the bride and the relationship between this process and the dreamer.

At the same time as the subconscious information flows naturally, the dreamer himself joins in the content of the dream. The dreamer is 'aware' of the presence of the sedan chair → the disgraceful role of 'me' makes the dreamer feel shy → he feels 'relatively still' because of his own escape and fear of being detected → he wants to get close to the bride and thus hears her yawn → the dreamer wants to get out of this situation, so he imagines the truck hitting him.

After the above analysis, it can be seen that the source of dreams is the memory of real life, and dreams are an extension of reality.

The information stored in the human brain is like a lot of small pieces of paper on the ground, if these small pieces of paper and some larger forces exist at the same time, it will inevitably produce motion; When people sleep, all kinds of emotions and other energy in the brain do not disappear (mainly to detect external danger), it will naturally drive the information in the brain; A lot of information in the brain is connected with each other, so it is like a chain, when one end is lifted, the other end will also be lifted, so it leads to a variety of scenarios.

The triggers that trigger the energy operation of the brain are different, mainly divided into: external triggers and internal triggers.

The external trigger end is mainly during sleep, the body feels various information from the outside world.

For example, when the bed is relatively hot, it is easier to dream of 'fire' or various 'heat sources'; When there is a slight 'alarm bell' next to it, it is easy to dream of 'fire engines', 'ambulances' or 'police cars'; When someone plays 'help' shouts, it is easier to dream of 'running for your life' scenes; When all are added together, there will be a dream of 'fire', and people will soon be awakened by the nightmare in order to avoid various 'disasters'.

Internal triggers include physical ailments or feelings of comfort, as well as everyday thoughts, emotions, and preferences.

For example, when people have various diseases, they often have nightmares and dreams caused by various physiological factors. People are emotional or continuous thinking before going to bed, it is easy to do some related dreams, the so-called 'day thought, night dream.' The dream is often related to People's Daily preferences, the so-called 'good people dream more pine and cypress peach and plum, good righteousness dream more sword and iron, good gifts dream more 笾 beans, good wise people dream more rivers and lakes, good believers dream more mountains and fields'.

In addition to the trigger, there is also the source of dreams: memory. In the above dream example, the 'sedan chair carrying the bride' is derived from the motor vehicle observed in reality, which indicates that recent events are the source of the dream material. After many scientists have explored, people have found that there are four sources of dreams.

(1) A recent and spiritually significant event, expressed directly in a dream.

(2) Several recent and significant facts coalesce into a single whole in the dream.

(3) One or more recent and significant events represented in the dream by a simultaneous and insignificant impression.

(4) An experience of great significance to the dreamer himself (through recollections and a series of thoughts), often with another recent but almost unrelated impression as the content of the dream.

From the analysis of dreams, it can be seen that a certain component of the dream is often the repetition of a recent impression. This component is likely to be in the same mental category as the stimulus that actually causes the dream (an important, or even not very important, stimulus), or it may come from a more recent thought.

Since the source of dreams is the memory of real life, why the scene in the dream is so unreal, and the things experienced are mostly contrary to common sense? In fact, although the dream comes from the real memory, in the dream, the subconscious mind replaces and associates the memory, making the real memory appear as the illusion in the dream. The above dream example is caused by the dreamer's association with traffic jams.

Although the dream lacks rationality and does not conform to the general logic in daily life, it is not completely chaotic, and some dreams not only have a certain 'plot', but also have a certain order of 'association'. The research on imagination in the dream state has always been mixed. In fact, in the state of sleep, people have deep sleep and light sleep, and the degree of inhibition of people's consciousness is high and low. In dreams, people still have a certain degree of consciousness, and can make some logical thinking and judgment (because this can better avoid danger). When people gradually transition from sleep to awakening, there is a low-level subconscious state of imagination. This kind of imagination is the reason why people's dreams are strange and confusing.

Imagination in the dream state is a weak low-level intellectual activity, which is closely related to the depth of sleep. This low-level imagination is the highest and most complex ability that people can have in dreams, and it generally appears when the physiological mechanism of sleep has the weakest inhibition on people's consciousness, that is, the period of easy awakening (of course, this refers to the light sleep during the dream sleep period, on the contrary, in the dreamless sleep period, although people are easy to wake up, but not necessarily dream. Not necessarily the associative power of dreams). The example of the dream described here arises from the dreamer's half-sleep state, and as soon as the sleep deepens, the inhibition of the physiological mechanism of sleep increases, and the weak imagination automatically disappears. The sense of self in dreams is also greatly diminished.

The above dream example has an unexpected follow-up to the dreamer: Several days later, late at night, he witnessed the dream reenactment - just down the street, the speeding truck crashed into a white car. Later people found that the truck driver because of the long journey, at that time fell asleep.

A dream, a harbinger of future reality?