Today we have with us, Ms. D. Lisa West. She's a Certified Life Coach and Dream Doula who specializes in helping people process their sleeping dreams and realize their dreams for the future. Listen as we discuss Dreams we've had as well as those of others. Before we get started, Please note a few things about dreams:
What have researchers learned about dreams?“Everyone dreams,” says The World Book Encyclopedia (1984, Vol. 5, p. 279). “Most adults dream for about 100 minutes during eight hours of sleep.” So dreams are a normal human experience. Said Dr. Allan Hobson, of Harvard Medical School: “They are ambiguous stimuli which can be interpreted in any way a therapist is predisposed to. But their meaning is in the eye of the beholder—not in the dream itself.”When reporting this, the “Science Times” section of The New York Times added: “Within the school that places great value on dreams, there are many approaches to finding the psychological message of a dream, each reflecting different theoretical outlooks. A Freudian will find one kind of meaning in a dream, while a Jungian will find another, and a Gestalt therapist will find still another meaning. . . . But the view that dreams have psychological meaning at all has come under strong attack from neuroscientists.”—July 10, 1984, p. C12.
1. Dreaming is most common in the morning. You might find you remember your dreams better just after awakening in the morning. This is because you spend more time in the REM stage of sleep right before waking, leading to vivid and longer dreams. It’s possible to have dreams during the deep sleep common throughout the night, but they’ll likely be a little harder to remember once you wake up hours later.
2. Less stress leads to better dreams. Stress and other negative emotions lead to problems like depression, high blood pressure, and bad dreams, too. If you notice yourself only having negative dreams or even nightmares, consider seeking mental health care to see if there might be an underlying issue you need to resolve. Once you achieve a greater sense of inner tranquility, you’ll likely have better types of dreams, too.
3. Memories inform your dreams. Waking life experiences seep into your subconscious, laying the foundation for your future dreams. Some neuroscience professionals believe short-term to long-term memory consolidation happens during the dreaming process. Others insist dreams are a way the brain prepares human beings to handle future events as well.
4. Men and women dream differently. While everyone can dream about all sorts of different things, there are some core differences in common dream themes between men and women. For instance, men dream more often about having to act aggressively, while women tend to have dreams about hard conversations or experiencing rejection.
5. Negative dreams are more common. Bad dreams are unfortunately far more common than good ones for most people. This is partially due to the amount of stress many experiences in their daily lives. This might be because of the neurons and neurotransmitters flooding in and out of the amygdala (the fear center of the brain) often during sleep. Some sleep doctors use antidepressants or forms of sleep medicine to help treat nightmare disorders of this variety.
6. Part of your brain shuts down while you dream. The prefrontal cortex—or the part of the brain that makes sense of the wide array of stimuli you encounter while awake—shuts down while you dream. This leads to dreams taking on their bizarre and sometimes nonsensical quality, as you lose out on the ability to sift through your brain activity rationally.
