Dreams - Science Documentary

dreams no doubt for as long as you've had them we've been fascinated by them some of the earliest written texts from the ancient Sumerians described dreams interpretations of them the meaning of them because of course to us dreams are not just the random mundane products of the unconscious mind we may not remember most of them but when we do remember our dreams our experiences and emotions can have a powerful effect on us even after we wake up why what are dreams why do we dream what's the history of what's the science what's the story behind dreams do they have meaning do they say important things or reflect who we are furthermore can I take control of my dreams what is sleep paralysis why is it so hard to remember my dreams in this video we will answer all these questions and more as we explore the world of dreams [Music] before we begin I would like to thank Gabriel lund shim Rosen Zach and Danny Evgeny zakharov virtual happiness syndrome and a vast user for being our most recent supporters on patreon they join these supporters who make these videos possible I was back in high school I don't know why I haven't even been inside my high school building for years I rarely ever even think about it but there I was wandering the halls on the morning the first day of the year I was searching for my classes but I was having trouble finding them as I wandered to the hallways I saw people I hadn't seen in years my classmates teachers and friends but I was too busy to talk I simply couldn't find my history class they had started to really bug me I began to search frantically I would try to read the numbers in the classroom doors but they would change when I looked at them I was going to be late I became anxious unreasonably anxious I would never make it I'd miss everything I'd never find my history class and I'd be wandering the halls forever finally I found it but as I opened the door to walk in suddenly everything changed almost all the lights in his school were now off it was suddenly nighttime the room was empty and in fact the whole school was empty I was suddenly alone in the whole school at night but was I really loved I felt something I couldn't hear or see anyone but I felt a presence of someone else in the school it was washing me coming closer as I felt it nearly upon me I tried to run but I couldn't I was practically paralyzed move I kept thinking but I just couldn't then right before it was upon me I woke up does this sound familiar I imagine to most of you at least some of these things did I'll be happy to share some of my dreams in this video but this dream I made up using events and emotions commonly reported in dreams I created a stereotypical dream I guess you could say this sort of thing is important though our dreams can be wildly unique being often stories we would never think of consciously researchers have noticed that people's dreams do share certain elements and identifying commonalities is very important and helping scientists understand why we drink to understand dreaming we first have to understand why we even sleep to begin with it's good to be curious about sleep we spend quite a bit of time doing it after all meaning on average about eight hours of sleep a night some of us need more and in fact children need more but some of us define with less thankfully everyone easily always gets the required amount of sleep every night and insomnia is never a problem for anyone right it all adds up twists spending about a third of our lives asleep which includes about six years of dreaming that is a lot of time spent doing nothing think of how many more fire learning videos I could make if I didn't need to sleep well unfortunately there isn't much way around it cutting back to unhealthy levels of sleep especially for long durations has negative consequences on our mood attention span immune system energy level appearance that's right beauty sleep is a thing weight memory and eventually life expectancy staying up for days at a time can have debilitating short-term effects on our mental and physical health and eventually staying upper weeks will cause someone to die of exhaustion furthermore a lack of sleep as a factor in an estimated 20% of car accidents so much for sleeping when we're dead scientists don't understand everything about sleep but it is clear sleep is a basic necessity we need it like food and water nearly all animals join us in doing it from dogs and cats to mice and rats to sheep and bats to land crabs which suggests that not only is it necessary but it even offers a survival advantage that's a bit surprising lying unconscious for eight hours in a dark doesn't seem like the best way to survive in the wilderness but it seems to be true why well for the body sleep is a time of much-needed regeneration wounds heal muscles grow toxins are flushed out of the brain hormones are released at for example help children grow our body uses sleep for maintenance and repairs this documentary is more about the brain in the body though and as it happens the brain is the main focus of sleep research inside our heads at night is a bewildering and incredibly fascinating mystery our brains are not really off during sleep not really even figuratively when talking scientifically the only time a normal brain is off is during a coma or when one is under general anaesthesia or something along those lines in fact in certain phases of sleep the brain is quite active with certain areas being more active than in waking life such as the limbic system this is the door to understanding dreaming there are four phases of sleep and REM one and REM 2 and r m3 and REM sleep and REM 3 by the way used to be divided into n room 3 and 4 and it is sometimes still listed as such but in this video we will recognize that they have been conjoined REM stands for rapid eye movement and REM just stands for non REM as you might expect REM takes its name from rapid eye movement when someone is in this phase you can actually catch their eye is moving around rapidly even though they're fast asleep although I don't really do this anymore because watching people asleep is evidently frowned upon even when undertaken in the pursuit of knowledge anyway in a full night's sleep you go through each of these stages about 4 to 6 times a night with each cycle lasting around an hour and a half we'll go through what happens in these stages in a moment but believe it or not maybe you can tell to an extent which stage you or even someone else is in without the fancy electroencephalograms but scientists use how well let's start with this have you ever heard apparently scientists say that it takes an hour and a half before we start dreaming if you dream like I do you were probably skeptical when you first heard this I dream during 10 minute naps a lot of people do how could they say this it must be wrong well this isn't exactly what they say consider those dreams you have during short naps or the beginning of sleep versus those that you have during a full night's sleep are the dreams during long periods of sleep much more vivid story like and emotional than the random more mundane images and sounds and such of a quick nap do you have many powerful nightmares in 10 min apps well there we have it the powerful dreams are generally the product of REM sleep scientists say it takes about an hour and a half before we first enter REM asleep not dreaming REM dreams specifically dream type is a way of telling which phase you're in alright let's go through this let's go to sleep and REM one is the phase in which you begin transitioning into sleep as you slowly begin to follow sleep brain activity changes people who are awoken in this stage do sometimes claim to be dreaming however other participants would describe it as a kind of thinking it might not feel that they were actually fully asleep yet it's a kind of in-between phase you may also experience some forms of strange auditory tactile or even visual hallucinations in an REM one called hypnagogic hallucinations such as hearing thunder as a kind of voice talking to you after you've had too much coffee oh and let's not forget you may also fall off a building many people occasionally experience a sudden startled while falling asleep that causes them to jump and wake up as if they were about to fall off a building that is called a hypnic jerk it's completely normal and can be the result of something as simple as caffeine this stage represents about five to ten percent of total sleep next we transition into n REM - which represents about 45 to 55 percent of sleep this is deeper sleep we start to become much less aware of our surroundings in this phase we don't often dream in this stage and when we it's almost like an unconscious thinking type of dreaming then we reach an REM 3 this is also called slow-wave sleep it is the deepest phase of sleep representing 15 to 25% of a full night's sleep the heart rate and breathing slow and your body temperature drops it's in stage 3 that we tend to do things like sleepwalk sleep talk with the bed or experience night terrors children under the age of 12 are much more prone to each of these things night terrors by the way not the same thing as nightmares night terrors refer to an activity very similar to sleepwalking which the sufferer appears to be panicked and threatened while asleep interestingly these behaviors aren't as associated with dreaming as we might think many people who are awoken during sleepwalking or night terrors often have no memory of it and do not claim to have been dreaming although some do and I personally can think of examples where I woke myself up talking to someone and a dream that carried on in person for a moment there is such a thing as people acting out their dreams enfold but that tends to refer to a very different situation we'll come back to sleepwalking we do dream an end room 3 as I said although like the first two phases it isn't as common and dreams are referred to as less vivid and story like again somewhat like thinking or remembering things or going through things in a deep sleep the mind kind of wandering and not necessarily building complex stories that we feel were acting out you could call them less impactful or less memorable dreams we then go back into n room 2 but after this we reach around and this is where the dreaming really begins [Music] REM sleep accounts for 20 to 25% of sleep time it's sometimes called paradoxical sleep because something strange occurs in the state by looking at brain activity readings of the stage the brain basically looks awake yet people are fast asleep and in fact it is in this stage that people are the most difficult to wake up your heart rate and breathing pick back up certain areas of the brain namely those involved in memory and emotion have even higher levels of blood flow than during waking hours an important clue as to what's going on naturally scientists reserving dreams tend to focus most on this phase one area of the brain though that isn't very active which likely does not surprise you is the prefrontal cortex in other words the area involved in logic reason and self-awareness this likely explains why we aren't very self-aware and dreams and why dreams are a bit well nonsensical at times [Music] we'll spend about five 20 minutes dreaming per cycle adding up to the two hours or so of REM dreaming at night do we all actually dream though many people say they don't or do so rarely it's actually relatively rare to not drink usually only found in victims of brain damage for the majority of us we go on these subconscious adventures every night multiple times a night we just don't remember it well the areas involved with memory are active during REM however the processes of recording memories are usually very inactive that might be for a reason if our brains were filled with memories from dreams it might be distracting in waking life according to researchers around 90 to 95% of a dream has forgotten within 10 minutes of waking up which is why at the recording dreams it's important to do so as soon as you wake up as I said you do dream in all stages of sleep notably and room 3 however if you do dream an end REM three usually interestingly it happens later on in sleep which is likely related to the increasing intensity of REM following this first period of roam you often return a stage 2 and the process restarts in the early period of sleep and REM 3 lasts longer however as the night progresses as I said it becomes shorter and REM lasts longer allowing dreams to last longer which likely explains both why most sleep walking and talking occur in the early hours of sleep whereas our most vibrant dreams occur shortly before we wake up in the morning [Music] sleep is a lot more complicated than we imagined but understanding this complexity is key to understanding dreams so with that out of the way why do we do it at all scientists aren't exactly sure however they have a number of very fascinating theories and a combination of different ones seems plausible especially considering that many are related nearly all cultures and religions have endeavor to address dreaming in the Abrahamic religions dreams are seen as opportunities for lessons and more importantly they teach that dreams may have divine meaning they may be the Word of God examples of this are found in Islam Judaism and Christianity Native Americans likewise believe that dreams had important meaning but they were windows into the soul or contained messages from ancestors the ancient Egyptians ancient Greeks and Romans and ancient Celts also had their ideas on how to interpret dreams believing that they had some significance Buddhism Hinduism the Animus religions of Africa the natives of Australia it's difficult to find a culture or belief system that doesn't place some importance on dreaming our dreams occasionally or even often messages from the divine messages from our ancestors or even prophetic visions of the future maybe maybe not regardless of whether or not scientists think that they are science itself can't say are the way because these things can't really be tested in a laboratory however the very common belief that dreams have a purpose that they mean something that they represent something about ourselves this can be better tested though it isn't easy because dreams are a subjective experience but in most part you have to rely on the dreamers account of a dream and these accounts are often unreliable owing to how easily we forget dreams and mix things up if it isn't recorded as soon as you wake up errors often occur this is of course why we can't be sure whether or not animals dream or have any idea what those dreams would be like almost all mammals from monkeys the goats have similar sleep cycles to us they go on to REM you can even see their eyes moving dogs often certainly look like they're chasing a squirrel or something like that sometimes but we still don't know what's going on and our heads for sure for the purposes of this documentary I asked my dog be dreams and if so what he dreams about and he said ARF you heard it here first folks serious scientific study of dreaming called neurology from the Greek word dream on Iran began in and twentieth centuries by figures such as Sigmund Freud who wrote extensively about dreams publishing books on how to interpret them he believed they were expression of the unconscious mind a manifestation of things that were repressed in waking life specifically things of a sexual nature unfortunately for Freud but I suppose fortunately for the rest of us as is so often the case for him his ideas don't appear to have been scientifically valid however as the 20th century progressed we gained a better insight into dreaming and why we may do it I was a young boy playing in the indoor play place in a fast-food restaurant with all the other kids a normal fun time I looked down from above the tunnels I climbed up and saw my mother sitting there around all the other parents patiently letting us all play as I went through the tunnels of the play place however I eventually realized I was on my own I looked out the rest of the room and suddenly it was night there was a dim green glow in the room everyone was gone and I was on my own through the doors came a large creepy zombie like man he entered to play place I recall him running to climb into the tunnels that I was in to reach me and then I woke up this dream from my childhood is one of the earliest ones I remember I suppose at the time it disturbed me enough to where I remember it to this day it's not an uncommon kind of dream to haves a child or in general relief even for most emotionally and mentally healthy people most dreams are negative the most commonly reported emotions and dreams are negative ones fear anxiety sadness anger embarrassment the sleeping mind often takes us to places that we don't want to go the worst of these are called nightmares and indeed there is a difference between a nightmare and a bad dream generally a nightmare refers to a dream that has such a strong negative emotional effect on us that we wake up in both circumstances we may dream of fighting of our partner cheating on us of being followed or chased by suspicious malevolent people and beings of the death of a loved one of being humiliated in front of others of being caught in an inescapable disaster like a tsunami or a fire and uh frankly quite dark things otherworldly beings dark creatures evil places and horrible stories this leads scientists to a theory about dreaming to understand this we have to understand the areas of the brain most active during sleep specifically REM these are again the emotional processing and memory areas such as the amygdala and hippocampus the brain might actually be preparing us for negative situations this is called threat simulation theory think of the holodeck in Star Trek where you can run simulations to prepare for dangerous situations without the danger I guess that would be a good example if something didn't go horribly ridiculously wrong with the holodeck in every episode but ah anyway this may be what our brain is doing the brain during REM as we've mentioned is quite similar to the waking brain in fact basically as far as the brain is concerned we are awake in the moment our REM dreams are reality dreaming then may have developed as a way to prepare our brains to handle the situations of which we are most fearful before they happen the brain might be training itself to handle a fight a humiliation a loss and enemy that we fear in waking life anything along those lines it's a fascinating though imperfect Theory does it make sense to prepare ourselves for our world where we could be confronted by malevolent zombies well ok that does kind of happen but we do dream about a lot of unrealistic things as well furthermore while many of our dreams are negative many are positive or neutral and the majority are not profound enough to be truly memorable if this theory holds true the brain wouldn't be assessing the likelihood of the dream content actually happening it would just be preparing us for situations that emotionally impact us other theories focus on another aspect of sleeping one thing that occurs in the brain during sleep is memory consolidation though it should be noted that it is not fully understood to what extent asleep plays in memory nor exactly how it works studies have shown that sleep both REM and n REM three sleep have an impact on memory essentially what the brain may be doing is sorting through the experiences you've had thereafter day strengthening memories that are deemed important while deleting memories that are unimportant noise an example would be strengthening the memory of the routes that you take to your classes on your first day of school while forgetting what color clothing your teachers are wearing generally it seems that n room 3 sleep has a larger effect on explicit or declarative memory which is the ability to remember factual information concepts and experiences whereas REM seems to have more of an effect on implicit memory which includes things like procedural memory emotional memory and spatial memory things you subconsciously remember or basically remember in different parts of the brain studies show that a short nap doesn't improve one's ability to do something like run a bike or play an instrument very much but an out of REM sleep does the fact that these two different phases of sleep have an effect on two different kinds of memory which are at different areas of the brain likely has a lot to do with why the dreams reported in these phases are notably different from each other one thing that scientists like Matt Wilson have discovered that reinforces this our profound studies on both mice and humans concerning memory replaying itself at night what they have done is looked at brain activity during the day while an individual complete two tasks for mice this would be something like running through a maze at every step of the maze the researchers record the mental activity of the mice solo specifically that they can later place the mouse in the same maze again an estimate correctly where the mouse is based off the brain activity alone impressive but it goes deeper when the mouse or human goes to sleep researchers can see activity being replayed in different ways in the brain depending on the sleep stage in an REM 3 the neurons that fired while the mouse go into the maze will be replayed very quickly sometimes backwards likely to strengthen the connection to reinforce what the brain has learned this registers as a prediction of where the mouse is on the maze indeed in humans and mice it can be observed that areas of the brain that control the areas of the body involved heavily in experiences of the day tend to sleep more deeply during the sleep in REM sleep however the memories are replayed but they are replayed in real time as if the brain were actually awake and experiencing it multiple findings support the association between REM and memory when new tasks are learned throughout the day people spend more time in REM sleep when REM sleep is disrupted people have a harder time remembering things a so city with it ie non-declarative memory though I should mention not all studies show this some studies do show that people chronically deprived of REM don't suffer from memory problems another clue is that we tend to spend a lot of time in REM when we're young the ages when we're first learning about how the world works fetuses spend much of their time in REM babies due to babies under six months old spend about half their sleep in REM the amount of time we spend in REM slowly diminishes with age scientists believe this may be a sign of REMS importance the learning and cognitive development another purpose of REM sleep may be to take memories and information gather throughout the day which have been strengthened in an REM 3 and then not simply to replay them but to experiment with them to compare them with past experiences and create novel associations this would explain the bizarre nature of dream as I mentioned the logical areas or the left-brained areas of the brain are turned off during REM sleep which is likely wide dreams lack sense or more precisely why we don't notice that they lack sense these dreams are fascinating yet utterly bizarre but that may be the point to associate things that we wouldn't normally in our waking lives indeed number of inventions and ideas are attributed to dreams a famous example is that of American inventor Elias Howe who invented the sewing machine in 1846 after being stumped on how to create the machine here with the bed he dreamt he was kidnapped by tribal peoples who his King demanded that he invented a sewing machine within 24 hours he failed and the tribe has been gathered around him and began lunging their spears into him however as they did so he noticed something peculiar about their spears there was a hole in the top of them they were shaped like the sewing needle ought to be he ran out of bed at 4:00 in the morning and evidently by 9:00 he had his invention working how much of a role did the dream play wasn't the deciding factor or was it a conclusion that Howe would have reached eventually anyway it's hard to say but scientists have shown that REM sleep does help people be more creative researchers who awaken say participants during REM sleep find that when asked to complete tasks that require creative problem-solving in the middle of the night again while they were in the middle of REM they perform better on those tasks adding on to this we tend to dream more when we're under stress or in new environments some researchers note that this may be the brains way of trying to solve problems in our waking life which also can relate back to threat simulation Theory repetitive dreams are quite common for people with post-traumatic stress disorder and often these dream is focused on the events through which they suffered 71% of people with PTSD suffer from regular nightmares many of whom have recurring ones this may be the brains way of problem-solving with REM though it would be specifically about solving emotional another thing that occurs during REM sleep is emotional consolidation have you ever gone to bed worrying about an issue and woken up the next day feeling a little bit better about it again this is possibly not coincidence the brain possibly uses REM sleep to go over the emotions you've felt throughout the day and Dreaming may be related to this process as well [Music] the emotions we feel in dreams are commonly powerful but not all bad very pleasant things happen in dreams as well exploring a new world relaxing with friends and family falling in love reuniting with someone long gone going back to simpler times the brain may be using dreams to run through emotional memories in general not just the bad ones again to aid us in life in general not just negative situations [Music] that's all well and good but there's another important question to be asked is dreaming itself what's important or is it a byproduct of the actual important activity in the brain some scientist suggests that while REM sleep may be very important dreams themselves are simply the sipping Minds attempt to make sense of what's going on and the rest of the brain it's possibly just forming a story out of the arbitrary signals it's receiving from the brain structures involved in REM according to scientists like Robert Stickgold of Harvard Medical School the reason that such randomness may be perceived as profound is that our minds are assembly specifically reviewing useful information during REM the dreams themselves may not be the actually important part similar things have been said about our emotions some scientists suggest that it's not our dreams that evoke such strong emotions in us but rather the strong emotions that we may be feeling in REM or what guide our dreams adding to the idea that dreams are inherently meaningless and just responses to stimuli is how the waking world can influence dreams a car honking someone talking to you being too hot or cold etc all these things have been known to sometimes influence dreams your dog starts barking and for a brief time before you wake up your dog may enter your dream frankly scientists don't agree and that's perfectly fine there's a lot more we have to understand about dreams before we can focus on a single explanation and indeed there are more explanations these were just the main ones a diversity of opinion is necessary it is possible that dreams are ultimately pointless but that would leave a lot of questions unanswered one thing that may provide a very important insight into why we dream is what happens when dreaming gets strange I dreamt I was in the middle of a very barren gray landscape it was evening and the Sun was going down though it wasn't visible behind the grey clouds I was alone except my baby whom I carried in my arms I slowly began to approach an ocean off in the distance as I came to the edge of the water I walked in ankle deep it was cold I then placed my child inside the water it did not react and began to float out into the ocean I felt horribly empty though I did not follow the child I felt it had to be done then I woke up pregnant women who later miscarry sometimes report having these types of dreams people in general may dream about being sick or developing a disorder before the conscious brain recognizes it there are numerous reports of this having occurred people experiencing dreams before a miscarriage before developing a cold or before developing a fatal illness that seemed to be eerily precisely indicative of what's coming maybe there's truth of this the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates used to ask people about their dreams while treating them in fact scientists are open to the idea that the REM brain may have a better ability to scan the body and detect abnormalities which then translate into dreams recall of course stimuli from outside the brain can influence dreams they're open to it but this would be difficult to test and prove how does one design an experiment to test this a number of problems arise when thinking about how to design such experiments firstly people being aware they're being tested could in fact likely would influence their dreams or a dream recall it's also possible to interpret dreams and basically any way you want especially if you're just looking at a single incident maybe a man being choked by a ghost is a sign of an impending lung condition or maybe he's just dreaming about violent ghosts perfectly healthy pregnant women dream about miscarriages all the time some dreams are eerily specific but while many people are honest there are likely a lot of other people who kind of claim to have dreamt about an experience post-hoc after the fact likely because well they're making it up well for now well label this phenomenon as a fascinating maybe for now though there are other weird dream phenomena to cover a question you may have asked about REM if our brains are acting out our dreams during sleep why don't we physically act them out the answer is REM atonia during REM the body becomes paralyzed except the Korus in the eyes which is the namesake and the diaphragm so that you can breathe this prevents us from the dangerous that could come to us and others from acting out our dreams in the real world but it's also responsible for another phenomenon sometimes when we wake up during REM we may experience sleep paralysis [Music] [Music] alien abductions the thing about many of the reports is that they sound quite a bit like what happens in sleep paralysis not so much the behavior you would expect from a civilization thousands of years ahead of us sleep paralysis occurs when you partially awaken during REM sleep you are awake enough to be aware of your surroundings but asleep enough to still be dreaming it's very often a negative experience naturally awakening and feeling paralyzed is going to cause someone strong anxiety in itself the dreaming brain then may pick up on that and it's all downhill from there many people never experience it if you're like me you may notice yourself being paralyzed from time to time during sleep but not see any hallucinations or all really even open your eyes and then just fall back asleep for some people though it's a terrifying experience dreamlike hallucinations on the semi awake mind reports of such events to not include just aliens and in fact a long predate alien abduction reports ghosts demons vampires dark entities etc all reported to visit people and their sleep through history oftentimes the victim may simply lie paralyzed in their beds while experiencing any or all of three main reported sensations firstly feeling a dark malevolent presence or actually observing a ghastly figure secondly an evil being sitting on top of your chest possibly assaulting you preventing you from breathing thirdly a form of levitation being raised by a ghost or perhaps being lifted into a spaceship generally these experiences only last for a few minutes but looking back on them they can seem likely last the whole night evidently a minority of those who experience it report enjoying the experience I suppose if you knew it was coming it would be easier to control your emotions like many sleep disorders it's probably a very genetic phenomenon affecting mostly those under the age of 25 although certain environmental influences like a change in sleep schedule or medication no doubt contribute as well in total an estimated one third of the population may experience sleep paralysis in her lives though estimations vary based on how the questions are phrased I suppose you could say that sleep paralysis is when the dreaming brain takes control of the conscious brain but what about the conscious brain taking control of the dreaming brain in other words is it possible to be aware of your dreams during them and to take control of them there is indeed such a thing it is known as lucid dreaming with practice using a variety of methods people report being able to realize they are dreaming and then being able to consciously take control of where the dream goes lucid dreamers or Inara nuts as they call themselves apparently seem to have science on their side reports of lucid dreaming date back to the ancient Greeks in 1867 Murray's only on the clock published the book dreams and the ways to direct them practical observations in which he not only discusses his experiences with lucid dreaming but instructs readers on how they may learn to do it themselves in 1913 the term lucid dreaming was coined by Frederick von Eden psychiatrist since then a number of studies have backed up the claims of lucid dreamers in these studies researchers ask lucid dreamers to move their eyes to count to ten when they realize that they're dreaming to the surprise the lucid dreaming individual is sometimes able to give the prearranged signal once they take control of their dream findings like this by the way suggest of the passage of time in dreams is the same as in waking life it's only after we wake up and remember dreams that we think that it lasted longer or shorter than they did I've never done it so I can't offer any personal advice but from what I've read it seems to be first about finding a way to recognize that you're dreaming generally this involves doing something like repeating a behavior in waking life like looking at a word written on your hand or the time on a clock when you fall asleep and dream because this behavior is repeated throughout the day they'll quite possibly do it in your sleep however because the areas of your brain involved in logic and such what are called left brain areas are off the word and time will change or not quite makes sense this is supposed to trigger the realization that you're dreaming and allow you to become self-aware again according to lucid dreamer lucid dreaming is fairly precarious at first it's quite easy to fall back into regular sleep or to wake yourself up or possibly even go into sleep paralysis it's an activity that requires balance and practice but to what extent can you control your dreams scientists aren't sure this is really too much of a subjective experience to objectively measure from outside the sleeping mind there is much more about lucid dreaming but has to be understood now let's turn back to sleep paralysis I mentioned that REM atonia is what prevents us from acting out our dreams by paralyzing us what happens when it's paralysis is disabled you would be correct in assuming that sleepwalking occurs however it's generally a different kind of sleepwalking the relationship between dreams and sleepwalking is not fully understood the scientists believe that sleepwalking or ilysm if you want to use a fancy Latin word most of the time is not related to dreams people are welcome during typical sleepwalking don't usually remember being in a dream because generally as I mentioned earlier most sleepwalking occurs in n rm3 however there is a disorder called RBD REM sleep behavior disorder where we do act out our dreams because this paralysis has been turned off people have been known to hold conversations to fight to yell to jump out of bed and to form all source behaviors in rum with this disorder which presents a danger to both themselves and their bed mates which could potentially be lethal especially given that most dreams are negative these behaviors also occur during an REM 3 sleepwalking 2 and in fact and REM 3 sleepwalkers have been known to drive cars cook food climb cranes and even commit murders however sleepwalking itself is not necessarily a sign of an issue in the brain especially for children who do it most often it's very likely genetic and can be triggered by trivial things essentially being the brain in a state of arousal while also still in deep sleep RBD however is almost always a sign of another issue and about 98% of people who suffer from RBD go on to develop a disorder such as Parkinson's or dementia RBD is most commonly found in males in middle age or older and is rather rare in other case though it's usually perfectly fine to wake up a sleepwalker it won't hurt them and in fact you generally should another phenomenon or more correctly a disorder associated with REM probably the worst of these is where sleep attacks you in waking life narcolepsy narcolepsy generally begins any teenage years or early twenties it is a neurological disorder characterized by falling asleep randomly and uncontrollably in the middle of a waking life literally called a sleep attack what happens is that sufferers of this disorder fall directly into REM sleep as I said generally uncontrollably often times it may be triggered by strong emotions or excitement this may result in something called cataplexy which is either a partial or full paralysis as you might have guessed this is related to REM atonia they may also experience hallucinations and have trouble distinguishing reality and the dream world while in his face sleep interrupts their days but they also tend to have very disrupted nights as well constantly waking up essentially the normal sleep cycle in a person with narcolepsy is disrupted and they suffer going in between wakefulness and REM as a side note they may have these stereotypical REM dreams during very quick naps as a result occurrences like these like much of this field in general require further study and analysis speaking of studies though let's now turn to another fascinating area of dream research and discuss what do people really dream about does what we dream about have a deeper meaning does it say something about ourselves by analyzing our dreams can we discover things about our lives to an extent I would say yes of course the focus of our dreams tends to be on what we focus on in waking life or at least that's where it often starts looking at your or someone else's dreams may therefore be a representation of what preoccupies the mind I will be very hesitant to draw important meaning from one single dream especially given how bizarre that can be but it might be worth looking at underlying repeating patterns and then comparing those patterns to population averages a number of books have been written dedicated to helping people interpret their dreams some are very specific horses symbolize success night symbolizes stress statues symbolize boredom with life the idea that these things not only symbolize very specific things in waking life but do so universally across cultures nations languages sexes ages etc does not really have much science behind it sometimes people will tell me their dreams and ask me what I think it means despite all this research I've done on dreams I don't often know what to say especially if it's just one dream if meaning it can be drawn from dreaming it would often be a very personal subjective thing when researchers look at the meaning behind dreams they look less often at the idea of the subconscious mind trying to tell you something and more at the notion that analyzing people's dreams provides a window into their minds so what types of things do we tend to dream about interestingly there are some common themes across the world being chased being nude or not dressed properly in public being late to an important event either by being lost or prevented by obstacles being unable to find location to something important discovering a new area of a familiar location such as a new room in your house being killed by an unstoppable disaster such as a tidal wave or the end of the world both the deceased being alive in dreams as as the living dying dreams these things tend to be very phantasmagoric for reasons we've mentioned they're unrealistic people or locations or stories can change a dime without the dreamer really even noticing all this sort of thing the dreamer may come up with concepts or experience emotions that they never had in waking life and perhaps never would have as I mentioned earlier almost everyone dreams even fetuses fetuses most likely dream of only tactile or auditory sensations likewise the blind dream if they've been blind for life they don't have visual dreams for obvious reasons babies too therefore dream though it's not known what these dreams are like a true legend of dream research was the American psychologist Calvin s Hall who while living in the great land of Cleveland Ohio analyzed the content of around 50,000 dreams which he gathered throughout his career his work indeed shows that the most common emotion felt in Dreams is anxiety and that negative emotions are more common than positive ones overall though positive dreams are of course somewhat common dreams of a sexual nature are less common than people might think less than 10 percent of reported dreams pertain to sexual things though in such studies of course numbers may be skewed because such dreams are embarrassing to report sexual dreams tend to be more common in adolescence men tend to dream of multiple partners women of high status partners such as celebrities fidelity is not accepted common in dreams for either gender regardless of fidelity in waking life dreaming in black and white has gone down over time what used to be more prevalent very possibly related to the prevalence of black and white television women kind of spend six to eight percent more time than men describing their dreams they also on average remember more when time spent dreaming is controlled for women also have more social interaction and their dreams than men with more characters men tend to dream more about unfamiliar vicar's women dream 13% more often of familiar characters men dream more of physical aggression and fighting and of unfamiliar and outdoor settings one study linked in description showed that young people most commonly reported dreams of monsters and animals and half of their recurring dreams contain threatening elements a 2004 study by Fogle at all shows a relationship between intelligence and the likelihood of dreaming about useful information learn throughout the day at least indirectly studies by Ernest Hartmann seemed to suggest that people who suffer from mental illness unhealthy social life and excessive stress have higher rates of nightmares than the average people with personality disorders tend to experience trouble with dreams as well as an example those with borderline personality disorder seem to experience dream reality confusion more often than the average population essentially meaning they may have slightly more trouble remembering what was real and it was a dream people with BPD also have more disturbances during asleep those with personality disorders in general may have less dream activity in general drug withdrawal can cause more intense dreams but ultimately any major change to neuro chemistry can or even just anything that disrupts sleep spicy food likely so eating before bed quite possibly cheese specifically not a whole lot of data on that around 67 percent of people report having experienced a repetitive dream at least once in their life the elderly report fewer negative dreams which is consistent with findings that they experienced fewer negative emotions in waking life as they age I've also performed my own surveys to which many of you have contributed very grateful for that my first question was do you remember your dream from last night as you can see here overwhelmingly 44% of people said no of course the majority of people said yes but yes was divided into 3 other important categories 16% vaguely could 22% did but forgot it soon after waking up and only 18% of people remember the last dream in through their days of course we had people answering this question all over the world at different times of days so there are of course problems with these surveys are just meant as very general polls not necessarily hard data secondly I asked if you recall your last dream what emotions did you feel in it the majority 29% said they don't recall the most common emotional response was of course negative motion to 26 percent followed by positive emotions at 18 percent and neutral or no strong emotions at 16 percent and other / mixed at 11 percent thirdly I asked which of these dreams sounds the most familiar to you the clear winner is being chased by a malevolent person or force with over a third of all people picking that one second place was finding a new area at the familiar place such as a new room in her house and a close third was being late for school or work / not being able to find it statistics like these simply reinforce the notion that dreams are a window into different parts of our mind we can use them with regard to the psychology of people in general but you are able to do the same perhaps and even create a detail on your own by keeping a dream journal and analyzing the content of your dreams whatever their content whatever their origins whatever their purpose dreams will likely captivate us for as long as we have them as they always have the fact that we may be only beginning our scientific investigation of them only adds to their mystery there are many things we still need to understand many problems you need to have clarified but perhaps for now we should sleep on it I hope you enjoyed this video if so I invite you to come check out the rest of fire learning and to subscribe to see more videos like this in the future we would appreciate donations on patreon to help with the cost of producing these videos the link to which you can find in the description you can support the channel in as little as one dollar contribution however you can make my dreams come true by simply subscribing to our YouTube channel for free a special thanks to our patreon supporters listed here we are also on Instagram Facebook and Twitter so come check us out there too thank you

Channel: Fire of Learning

Views: 197,053

Rating: 4.8500562 out of 5

Keywords: Dreams, Documentary, Sleep paralysis, Sleep walking, Lucid Dreaming, REM sleep, NREM, Sleep cycle, Science of sleep, Neuroscience, Dream data

Id: 0mKJm_Dstgk

Length: 51min 37sec (3097 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 29 2019