When it comes to sleep, it is the act of dreaming that many people are very interested in.
What do different dreams mean? Why do we dream? Do we always dream?
In this blog, Dr Lindsay Browning answers some of the most frequently asked questions (FAQs) about dreams and what they are all about.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs) about dreams
Does everyone dream?
Yes, everyone dreams but not everyone remembers their dreams.
We sleep in sleep cycles of around 90-110 minutes. Each sleep cycle goes from light to deep and then dreaming sleep, and the sleep cycles then repeat. If you wake from within dreaming sleep, then you will remember dreaming, but if you wake from light or deep sleep, then you won’t remember your dream. Remembering your dream or not very much depends on when you wake up.
What do my dreams mean?
We believe that dreams are our brain’s way of processing emotions. We also believe dreams are about practising for situations we might experience.
Common dream themes include being late for something, turning up for an exam we haven’t revised for, or even going to work naked. We think that dreams are a safe way of running through situations and practising how we would deal with them.
The content of the dream is less important than the emotion behind it. As mentioned, we believe dreams are about ‘processing’, so I often recommend that you think of dreaming sleep as ‘free overnight therapy’. It is your brain’s way of understanding the world and processing anything difficult.
When I fall asleep I often feel like I’m falling and then I wake up. Is this a dream? What does this mean?
As we fall asleep, we can get a thing called a hypnic jerk, which is a sensation of falling just before we wake up.
When we fall asleep our body becomes paralysed so that we don’t act out our dreams. However, this can mean that as we fall asleep our body starts to become paralysed. If we wake up, just as we are falling asleep, this transition from our body being paralysed and then not being paralysed again, leads to that sensation of falling or jerking our body.
Sometimes I wake up from sleep and feel paralysed like I’m unable to move. What is this? Again, is it part of my dream?
This is called sleep paralysis and is a phenomenon experienced throughout the world.
People describe waking from sleep but being unable to move their body and will report being extremely scared. It is often accompanied by a report that they can see a scary figure in the room, often at the foot of the bed.
As scientists, we believe that this is due to a phase or ‘problem’ between being asleep and being awake.
As mentioned above, when we are asleep our body is paralysed. Sleep paralysis is when our consciousness wakes up, but our body is still paralysed. This means part of your brain is awake and part of your brain is still asleep. This is very confusing for your brain and it leads to a deep feeling of fear – hence the description of feeling petrified.
Can I control my dreams?
There is a thing called lucid dreaming, which is when you are aware that you’re asleep and can deliberately change and control your dreams.
It is something that people can practice to be able to do, although it may mean that your dreaming sleep isn’t quite doing the same job of processing emotion and situations that it would do, if you weren’t changing your dreams consciously.
I have repeated nightmares and bad dreams. How can I stop them?
When people have experienced something very traumatic, like a car crash, then often they can have repeated nightmares about the accident. This is common in PTSD.
Your brain is trying to re-live the trauma, so that it can make sense of it and practice other ways of acting in that situation, which might have been more helpful. However, because the situation is too scary, you wake up before the dream is finished.
In order to stop the repeated bad dreams, a good technique to practice is the Dream Completion Technique. This involves thinking about the bad dream during the day and imagining a different ending to it. This way, when you are asleep you will have practiced how to change the dream into something nicer – eliminating the scary dream.
Dreams and sleep
Dreams are a completely natural part of sleep. As mentioned above, they are the brain’s way of processing a whole range of scenarios, emotions and experiences.
However, if you feel your dreams are disruptive or that you are not getting enough complete sleep cycles to allow for sufficient ‘dream time’, you may want to seek support.
Furthermore, if you have experienced a trauma, and are subsequently suffering from PTSD, then you may also need assistance or professional help.
Book a consultation call and I can help guide you toward the right type of sleep therapy or support for you.