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Before I start this long post, I would like to share with you a dream of mine which I will never ever forget. This dream can be classified as Epic Dream.
Epic dreams are so huge, so compelling, and so vivid that you cannot ignore them. The details of such dreams remain with you for years, as if you just dreamt it last night. When you wake up from such a dream, you feel that you have discovered something profound or amazing about yourself or about the world. It feels like a life-changing experience.
Tracing back to 2010. It was the night before my SPM Biology examination. As usual I was burning midnight oil in front of my study table especially when it was about Biology tomorrow - one of the most challenging subject to me. I need to cram in as much information I can the night before the examination. Every minute every second are precious to me. I was even ready to sacrifice my sleep for that night. However, my eyelids failed me. I was really tired and it was already 2am. I contined to force myself to keep my eyes wide open for a few minutes and that was when I decided to take a short nap. Just a short nap - and I will gain back my energy. Look, I still have a few more chapters left. No matter how I must finish these tonight. This short nap will help me. I told myself.
So I just laid myself on the floor of living room with a few pillows with me, set my alarm to 30 minutes later, and I fell asleep as soon as I closed my eyes. But, as soon as I closed my eyes, I heard my alarm ringing - hey that was fast! I haven't even get enough sleep. And I heard my mum's voice - so nervous and frantically - she was calling my name - Jia Wei! Wake up! You are late for the exam! Faster! I jumped up from the floor, felt blank at first, and soon I knew what I thought will never happen to me really happened - I over slept. I didn't finish study the rest of the chapters. The exam. The real SPM Biology examination. I can still make it for the exam if I rushed to the school now - but NO! I don't want to! I haven't finish studying and I was totally blank my brain cannot work properly now and I..........
Eyes wide opened. Dry throat. Heart pounded within my ribcage. Sympathetic nerves firing like crazy. (If you know what I mean) I woke up bathed in cold sweat. So I dreamt about me being overslept when I actually only slept for - 10 minutes. Everything in the dream was so real, I still shiver as I am typing now. Okay la maybe someone will say, exam only mah what's the big deal. But to me, scoring in exam is my ultimate goal. Although I finally completed the exam and passed with flying colours but this became a dream that I will never ever forget because ever since then, I never dare to take a short nap when I study the night before exam. I can never have a peaceful sleep without ensuring I have finish studying.
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I always think dreaming is interesting. Dreams are unique; no other individual can have your personal background, your emotions, or your experiences. I always have the urge to make sense of my dreams and achieve a better understanding of them. I believe it provides me with insight into my ownself and a means for further self-exploration. There are myths saying that you dream of a person because that person misses you. Or the other way round. Or whatever. Oh, have you heard of deja vu?
Déjà vu, from French, literally "already seen", is the phenomenon of having the strong sensation that an event or experience currently being experienced has been experienced in the past, whether it has actually happened or not.
That is why I did some research on dreams and I would like to share it with my readers here. All information taken from: http://www.dreammoods.com/ :)
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How do we dream? Firstly, let us understand The Mechanics of Dreaming (CAUTION: This may be boring if you are not a science-stream student)
While you are dreaming, your body undergoes noticeable changes. Your adrenaline rises, your blood pressure increases, and you heart beats faster. Given this hyperactivity, it should be no surprise how someone with a weak heart can die in their sleep. Their heart may not be able to withstand the strain and the erratic changes that their body is going through.
Dreaming takes place during REM, which stands for Rapid Eye Movement. It is thus called, because your eyes move rapidly back and forth under the eyelids. REM sleep takes place in the fourth stage of sleep and accounts for 15-20% of your sleep time. From the point you fall asleep, it takes 30 to 90 minutes before you start dreaming. You cycle through the 4 stages of sleep and may enter the REM stage 4 to 7 times in one night. During REM, your blood pressure and heart rate fluctuate and increase. It sounds like your body is going through a lot, but in fact, it is quite the contrary. During REM, your bodies are completely immobile and your muscles remain completely relaxed. You may shift in your bed throughout the night, but when in REM, you are completely still. This is commonly known as "REM Paralysis".
In REM sleep, the mind is as active as it is during waking. However, chemically it is different. REM is controlled by the excitability level of the cholinergic neurons. Noradrenaline and seratonin are missing in the brain when in the dream state. These chemicals allow the brain to carry out task, solve problems and remember things. This is a reason why you find it so hard to remember your dreams.
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Dreaming is scientifically proven and everyone dreams. Do not claim that you don't dream, only one explanation can be accepted here - you merely forgot your dream. Hence, dreaming is considered as a result of physiological functions. Why is dreaming important?
Research have showed that people who are deprived from entering the dream phase of sleep or the REM stage, exhibit symptoms of irritability and anxiety. In one dream study, volunteers are woken up right before they enter into the dream state. Then they are allowed to fall back to sleep. Again, right before they enter REM sleep, they are awaken. This continues on through the night. The volunteers sleep the same amount of time as they normally do. The next day, these volunteers go about their day and observed to be disoriented, depressed, crabby, and quick tempered. There is a general impairment in their daily functioning. Some eat more than usual. As this study continues on through several nights, subjects become more and more agitated. It is found that deprivation of REM sleep causes over-sensitivity, lack of concentration and memory loss.
This study shows the importance of dreaming and its role in your well-being and health. Some researchers believe that dreams help you to tackle stress. Dreaming is a necessity and helps to recharge the mind and revitalize the body.
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Interesting dream facts that you may not know!
1. One-third of your life is spent sleeping.
2. In an average lifetime, you would have spent a total of about six years of it dreaming.
3. Everybody dreams. EVERYBODY! Simply because you do not remember your dream does not mean that you do not dream. In fact, you have several dreams during a normal night of sleep.
4. Dreams are indispensable. A lack of dream activity may imply some protein deficiency (OMG) or a personality disorder (are you serious?)
5. On average, you can dream anywhere from one to two hours every night. Moreover, you can have four to seven dreams in one night.
6. Blind people do dream. Whether visual images appear in their dreams depend on whether they were blind at birth or became blind later in life. But vision is not the only sense that constitutes a dream. Sound, tactility, and smell become hypersensitive for the blind and their dreams are based on these senses.
7. Five minutes after the end of the dream, half the content is forgotten. After ten minutes, 90% is lost.
8. Studies have shown that your brain waves are more active when you are dreaming than when we are awake.
9. Dreamers who are awakened right after REM sleep, are able to recall their dreams more vividly than those who slept through the night until morning.
10. Physiologically speaking, researchers found that during dreaming REM sleep, males experience erections and females experience increased vaginal blood flow, regardless the content of the dream. In fact, "wet dreams" may not necessarily coincide with overtly sexual dream content.
11. Toddlers do not dream about themselves. They do not appear in their own dreams until the age of 3 or 4.
12. If you are snoring, then you cannot be dreaming.
13. Nightmares are common in children, typically beginning at around age 3 and occurring up to age 7-8.
14. According to a research study, the most common setting for dreams is your own house.
15. It is very normal for males to experience an erection during the REM stage of sleep, even when they are not dreaming anything of a sexual nature.
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There are more to talk about and we can even look even deeper into each different type of dreams. Seeing this is already a long post, I will do research again while I have free time. Hope you learn something new together with me through my sharing! :) xoxo
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