Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren Vogel bum here with another classic for
Speaker 1: you today. Dreams can be pleasant, or painful or downright perplexing.
Speaker 1: My least favorite ones are the mundane ones where I
Speaker 1: do dishes or fold laundry and then wake up and
Speaker 1: it's not done. But why do we have dreams at all?
Speaker 1: And what do they mean? Welcome to brain Stuff from
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works, Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel bam here,
Speaker 1: the human brain is a mysterious little ball of gray matter.
Speaker 1: After all these years, researchers are still baffled by many
Speaker 1: aspects of how and why it operates like it does.
Speaker 1: Scientists have been performing sleep and dream studies for decades now,
Speaker 1: and we still aren't a hundred percent sure about the
Speaker 1: function of sleep or exactly how and why we dream.
Speaker 1: We do know that our dream cycle is typically most
Speaker 1: abundant and best remembered during the R E M stage
Speaker 1: of sleep. It's also pretty commonly up did among the
Speaker 1: scientific community that we all dream, though the frequency in
Speaker 1: which dreams are remembered varies from person to person. The
Speaker 1: question of whether dreams actually have a physiological, biological, or
Speaker 1: psychological function has yet to be answered, but that hasn't
Speaker 1: stopped scientists from researching and speculating. There are several theories
Speaker 1: as to why we dream. One is that dreams work
Speaker 1: hand in hand with sleep to help the brain sort
Speaker 1: through everything it collects during the waking hours. Your brain
Speaker 1: is met with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of
Speaker 1: inputs every day. Some are minor sensory details, like the
Speaker 1: color of a passing car, while others are far more complex,
Speaker 1: like the big presentation you're putting together for your job
Speaker 1: or class. During sleep, the brain works to plow through
Speaker 1: all of this information to decide what to hang onto
Speaker 1: and what to forget. Some researchers think that dreams play
Speaker 1: a role in this process. It's not just a stab
Speaker 1: in the dark. Though. There is some research to back
Speaker 1: up the ideas that dreams are tied to how we
Speaker 1: form memories. Studies indicate that as we're learning new things
Speaker 1: in our waking hours, our dreams increase while we sleep.
Speaker 1: Participants in a dream study who are taking a language
Speaker 1: course showed more dream activity than those who were not.
Speaker 1: In light of such studies, the idea that we use
Speaker 1: our dreams to sort through and convert short term memories
Speaker 1: into long term memories has gained some momentum in recent years.
Speaker 1: Another theory is that dreams typically reflect our emotions during
Speaker 1: the day. Our brains are working hard to make connections
Speaker 1: to achieve certain functions. When posed with a tough math problem,
Speaker 1: your brain is incredibly focused on that one thing, and
Speaker 1: the brain doesn't only serve mental functions. If you're building
Speaker 1: a bench, your brain is focused on making the right
Speaker 1: connections to allow your hands to work in concert with
Speaker 1: the saw in the wood to make an exact cut.
Speaker 1: The same goes for simple tasks like hitting a nail
Speaker 1: with a hammer. Have you ever lost focus and smashed
Speaker 1: your finger because your mind was elsewhere. Some researchers have
Speaker 1: proposed that while sleeping, everything slows down. We aren't required
Speaker 1: to focus on anything during sleep, so our brains make
Speaker 1: very loose connections. It's during sleep that the emotions of
Speaker 1: the day battle it out in our dream cycle. If
Speaker 1: something is weighing heavily on your mind during the day,
Speaker 1: chances are you might dream about it, either specifically or
Speaker 1: through some kind of imagery. For instance, if you're worried
Speaker 1: about losing your job due to company downsizing. You may
Speaker 1: dream that you're a shrunken person living in a world
Speaker 1: of giants, or that you're wandering aimlessly through a great
Speaker 1: desert Abyss. There's also a theory, definitely the least intriguing
Speaker 1: of the bunch, that dreams don't really serve any function
Speaker 1: at all, that they're just a pointless byproduct of the
Speaker 1: brain firing wallaby slumber. We know that the rear portion
Speaker 1: of our brain gets pretty active during r M sleep,
Speaker 1: when most dreaming occurs. Some think that it's just the
Speaker 1: brain winding down for the night, and that dreams are
Speaker 1: random and meaningless firings that we don't have when we're
Speaker 1: awake at the end of the day. As long as
Speaker 1: the brain remains such a mystery, we probably won't be
Speaker 1: able to pinpoint with absolute certainty exactly why we dream.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Charles W. Bryant, Yes Chuck
Speaker 1: and produced by Tristan McNeil and Tyler Playing. Or more
Speaker 1: on this and lots of other dreamy topics at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Or more podcasts in my heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows,