Deciphering Your Dreams E-Book

50MINUTES

• Herausgeber: 50Minutes.com
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Serie: Health & Wellbeing
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 34

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Change is only 50 minutes away! Find out everything you need to know about deciphering your dreams with this straightforward guide.

We have all suffered from the occasional nightmare or two during our lives. And we have all had dreams that we never want to wake up from. But do you know where these dreams come from and why we have them? If the answer is no, and if you have ever wondered what your weird and wonderful dreams might mean, then this might just be the guide for you. 

In just 50 minutes you will be able to:
• Understand what dreams are and why we have them
• Remember and analyse your dreams when you wake up
• Decide if you need to go see a psychologist or a sleep specialist

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Leseprobe

Deciphering your dreams

Problem: have you ever woken up with a start after a nightmare, with no idea where it came from? Or had a strange dream where intriguing, meaningless elements were all mixed together? But why do we dream? What role do our dreams play? And can we really find out what they mean? Aims: understand how dreams work and how they influence our daily lives, and discover how to interpret them.FAQs:Does everyone dream?Do we constantly dream when we are asleep? What is the point of dreams? Why do I not always remember my dreams? What are precognitive dreams? Do they really exist? Can dreams influence my everyday life? How can I interpret my dreams by myself?

There is nothing more intimate and personalised than dreaming. A dream is a sort of nocturnal film, where we are both the director and the protagonist, more often than not without us even being aware of it. However, it cannot be denied that the frantic pace of our everyday lives means that they are usually the least of our worries. Few people take the time to examine their unlikely imaginary adventures when they wake up. But who among us has never woken up in a panic, or even in tears, after a nightmare, overwhelmed by terrifying thoughts? “Was it a dream? Why did I dream that?” And, on the other hand, who has never tried to make a sweet dream last longer, to see where it would take them? Our dreams call out to us, all the more so when they are strange or distressing.

Are dreams nothing more than meaningless fantasies or, on the contrary, are they valuable sources of information on our subconscious? How much attention should we pay to them? Why do they often leave nothing more but faint memories? Is it possible to remember them better, or even understand them? What does the science say? These are all questions that we will attempt to answer in this guide, while keeping our eyes wide open.

Where do dreams come from?

Sleep cycles and their phases

Understanding our dreams and their psychological dimension is a fascinating topic, but what is going on from a purely physiological point when we dream? Certain branches of contemporary clinical neuroscience– meaning the medical specialities which study the nervous system, such as neurology and sleep medicine – focus on the direct study of brain activity in order to better understand several questions, including the phenomenon of dreams.

At the end of the 1950s, the French researcher Michel Jouvet noticed an unexpected phenomenon with the help of an electroencephalogram. He called it paradoxical sleep (most commonly known today as rapid eye movement sleep), a stage of sleeping which is now associated with dreaming. Jouvet describes it as paradoxical because of the contrast between extreme eye movement and brain activity with a listless, often difficult-to-wake body.

Did you know?

Rapid eye movement sleep is not only a human phenomenon. In fact, it has been proven that all warm-blooded animals, including birds and other mammals, go through the same sleep phase.

In order to better understand the phases of rapid eye movement sleep – and therefore the time when we dream, according to several experts – during a night’s sleep, it is helpful to know they are made up of a succession of cycles of around 90 to 120 minutes long. During a typical night’s sleep, the average person will go through three to five of these cycles, during which scientists distinguish several phases:

Slow-wave sleep, which lasts between 60 and 75 minutes and is made up of four stages:Drowsy sleep is a state of semiconsciousness, during which the sleeper is easily woken up (stage 1).Light sleep is the phase we go through most often during the night. It represents around 50% of our sleep time (stage 2).