‘Yeah right, in your dreams!’
Today, I’m referring not to your “hopes and dreams” (which, yes, are extremely important), but to those experiences that primarily occur during the sleep phase of Rapid Eye Movement (REM).
Healthy sleep and dreaming often go hand-in-hand. Dreams have important functions, appearing to be involved in “offline” reorganization/consolidation of memory, emotional processing, and learning.
Freud felt that dreams are in part a review of the “residue of the day,” or where emotional experiences are processed/integrated. Often, the result is a simple, ordinary dream. Interestingly, as Scarpelli, et al., documented, dream contents that are regarded as “nightmares” and manifest in more negative emotions such as fear and anxiety are more common than dreams with positive emotions.
Recurrent dreams may be linked to unresolved social-emotional issues or stress. They may recur in “back-to-back” nights, or recur over weeks, months, even years. An example of a “back-to-back” dream that resulted in a Nobel Prize, was Otto Loewi’s dream of a chemical transmission between nerves and organs. Translating his dream into wakefulness (on his second attempt), resulted in his famous “frog-heart” experiment, and subsequently the discovery of acetylcholine.
As the Loewi illustration reminds us, dreaming can contribute to creativity. Every student who has taken organic chemistry has heard the story of how Kekulé’s dream of a snake biting its own tail helped him discover the structure of the benzene ring. Paul McCartney awoke to the tune of “Yesterday,” wondering if he simply was remembering someone else’s music. (Fortunately, he expanded beyond his first title lyrics of “Scrambled Eggs.”)
Lucid dreaming is when you are aware that you are dreaming. Some individuals have attempted to influence their dreams by repeating a mantra before falling asleep, i.e., “I’m going to have a lucid dream and solve (this) problem.” About one-third of lucid dreamers are successful in impacting the dream experience.
It is sometimes difficult to recall one’s dreams, though. For most, this is an occasional issue. For some, it is a more consistent problem. “High Recallers” of dreams tend to have better cerebral blood flow during both REM sleep and when awake, compared to those who are poor recallers of their dream experience.
Many of us and our current or future patients do, or will, experience significant sleep disruption—deprivation, insomnia, sleep apnea, or irregular schedules secondary to shift work or on-call duties. These can significantly disrupt normal REM and non-REM sleep.
As many neuropathways of the brain are similarly involved in both dreaming and wakefulness (the “continuity hypothesis”), this relationship and the examples above can be gentle reminders of one of the many benefits of a healthy lifestyle, which includes adequate sleep.
If you would like to share inspirational quotes, stories, or ideas which might be helpful to others, please feel free to email Dr. Melissa Naslund at melissa.naslund@UND.edu.
