If you are getting dreams often, you are a healthy human because it is considered you are getting healthy sleep. Good sleep has been connected to better cerebral function and emotional health, and studies have connected dreams to effective thinking, memory, and emotional processing. Scientists say that during sleep, our body is working to support healthy brain function and preserve our physical health. In children and teens, sleep also helps support growth and development. Getting insufficient sleep can raise risk for chronic health problems.
Experts are working on continued studies to find out how dreaming plays a role in supporting brain functions while we are awake, such as thought processing, memories, and emotions. Therefore, researchers believe that dreaming contributes to healthy sleep. Dreams can help in regulating our emotions good as well as bad. Depressed people struggle to get sleep, people who get sound sleep are healthier mentally and physically. Research shows that dreaming is not just a by-product of sleep, but it serves in our well-being. Many people in world have got solutions to their problems in dreams.
Jack Nicklaus – the renowned golfer who hadn’t been doing well in his game for a particular period of time in his life. One night he visualized that he was playing very well and noticed that his grip on the golf club was different than what he actually used in the real world. He tried the grip that he’d seen in the dream and it worked. His golfing skills greatly improved.
There is another anecdote: Elias Howe, who invented the modern sewing machine, faced a great problem while making the machine. He didn’t know where to provide an eye to his sewing machine needle. He couldn’t provide it at the tail, as is usually done in hand-held needles. One night, after he had spent days figuring out a solution, he saw a dream in which he had been assigned the task of making a sewing machine by a king. The king gave him 24 hours to make it or else he would be executed. He struggled with the same problem of the needle eye in the dream. Then the time of execution arrived.
While he was being carried by the guards for execution, he noticed their spears were pierced at the tips. He had found the answer! He should provide the eye to his sewing machine needle at its pointed tip! He begged for more time and whilst begging he woke up. He rushed to the machine that he had been working on and solved his problem.
Psychologists tell us that dreams disclose critical aspects about ourselves. Dreams are a reflection of our state of mind, future possibilities, and changes that we will be experiencing sooner. Some scientists have contradictory opinion. They consider dreaming to be an inadvertent consequence of sleep.
Sigmund Freud said that dreams are the disguised fulfilments of repressed youthful wishes. Dreaming is like overnight therapy. The Interpretation of Dreams is an 1899 book by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, in which the author introduces his theory of the unconscious with respect to dream interpretation.
Carl Jung attributes symbol or image from a dream and intensify it by doing research on the meaning of the symbol. This meaning could come from myths, fairy tales, or folklore. Jung said that by amplifying dreams, we gain a deeper understanding of their meaning.
Dreams help us store memories and the things we have learned. Often students get solutions to complex theories and formulas in their dreams prior to exams. The brain reactivates and consolidates newly received memories and information in pieces while we sleep. As a student, Larry Page (founder of Google) had an irrational fear that he had been accepted into Stamford University by mistake. This feeling had trigged an anxiety dream. He imagined that he could download the entire web onto some old computers lying around, so he got up in the middle of the night to do some maths. When he realised it was reasonable, he took two years out of studying to create Google. Imagine how different our daily life would be if he hadn’t had that dream?
Dreams help process our emotions. We can interpret our dreams by learning more about common symbols, keeping a dream diary, and trying to identify personal associations. Recent research suggests that we are more likely to dream about emotionally intense experiences, and the theta brain waves during REM sleep are one way in which the brain consolidates those memories. This has led some researchers to examine how REM sleep plays a role in trauma recovery and mood regulation, owing to its hand in processing difficult experiences.
An average person has three to five dreams per night, and some may have up to seven; however, most dreams are immediately or quickly forgotten. Dreams tend to last longer as the night progresses.
Some common interpretations of dreaming
I am giving here few common dream interpretations.
- If you see an elephant in dream means good health, success, strength, prosperity, and intelligence, while dreaming about a lion suggests that honour, power, fame, or recognition lie in your future.
- Dreaming about falling tends to signify a loss of control over an important situation. It also indicates fear, terror, and anxiety that comes out of losing grip over significant things.
- To be in an unfamiliar place in a dream, according to Miller’s dream book, is a symbol of the fact that some life changes await you.
- Death in a dream may symbolize the end of something and the beginning of something new.
Conclusion
Dreaming sharpens information, our mind and is most beneficial to our health.
