Dreams are one of the most interesting effects of our brain. Dreams can be inspiring , exciting, arousing, terrifying and a whole lot of other -ings. Dreams have been the subject of much debate and attempts to explain them and while there are many opinions and ideas out there, realistically we know astonishingly little about why they happen or what they mean. In fact we dont know whether or not they serve any purpose at all. They may simply be some wierd side effect of sleeping.

Misconception 1: Dreams are short

You may have heard before that dreams occur in very small time increments (in real time) and only feel like they are really long (the movie inception probably hasn’t helped this myth; for the record there is no scientific basis for levels of dream or implanting ideas). I specifically don’t know of a definitive proven answer of the relation between ‘dream time’ and ‘real time’, but there is no evidence that dreams happen in a very fast amount of real time. Periods of REM last from anywhere from about 10 minutes (at the beginning of the night) up to about 30 minutes (at the end of the night) so while it seems likely that dreams may feel longer than they actually are, there is no evidence they are mere seconds. What is true however, is that during dreams, the front part of your brain is not participating, and the front part of your brain is the organisor (of time, sequence and goal directed activity). This is why dreams are wierdly sequenced, have odd timing and don’t follow some specific goal; it’s much more a ‘go with the flow’ thing.

Misconception 2: Dreams are in black and white

I’m not really sure how prevalent this idea is, but I have heard it before, that we only dream in black and white and that our brain fills in the colour afterwards. This idea also features in the Iron Maiden lyrics ‘I only dream in black and white, I only dream cus’ I’m alive’. It’s probably fairly safe to assume that indeed only living people dream, but to the best of my knowledge there is no evidence that we dream in black and white. Most people report dreaming in colour, and there is no reason to assume this from ‘filling in’. A few people do report dreaming in black and white, which might or might not be true (it may simply be a memory issue, since dreams fade from memory so quickly, perhaps for them the colour memory fades quicker). This idea is possibly a misconception of something that is true which is that when dreaming the primary visual areas relating to your eyes are ‘off’ (not doing anything) but the higher visual areas are very busy, leading to the visual hallucinations of dreaming. (Hallucination is defined is a sensory experience despite the lack of any stimuli and so dreaming is actually a type of hallucination). Colour is not dealt with in the brain in the primary visual area though, it is dealt with in the higher areas that are active in dreaming, so there is no reason to expect us not to dream in colour.

Misconception 3: Dreams are meaningful

Okay, so slight disclaimer: to say that dreams are meaningful is a lie is not really defendable scientifically, but neither is the claim that they are definitely meaningful. Really, despite much discussion with much research and a lot of ideas and opinions, we basically don’t know what they mean. Freud for example used brilliant (and ridiculous) methods of deduction to find meaning and elaborate explanations for dreams but we don’t tend to really believe his interpretations anymore. There seems to be a theme of believing whatever meaning in dreams is very cryptic and hidden, but personally I would ask why would it have to be so that (if dreams do have meaning) that the meaning be complicated and hidden. I think it’s quite plausible they are mostly random. Dreams often are relevant, that is more certain, it does seem that dreams weave in information that is recent and available in the brain, but that doesn’t actually mean they are important or relevant, it seems to be the case that sleep and dreaming are important in memory consolidation (making memories stronger by basically going over them) and this mechanism could easily provide recent information for your brain to dream about. Dreams might or might not have any meaning at all, what is fairly certain is that if there is meaning, we don’t yet know how to interpret it very well and so I would be very cautious of anyone who claims to know how to.

Interesting Extras

Sleep paralysis is a disorder in which the normal paralysis of REM sleep happens in times when in shouldn’t, such as when you’re awake. Usually it happens right when people are waking up, or also sometimes right as people fall asleep. A typical case would be to wake up (possibly still entranced by a dream) and being completely paralyzed for several seconds, which can be quite terrifying.

Oppositely, what would happen if you were not paralyzed during REM sleep? You act out your dreams in full live action in a disorder called REM sleep disorder.

Sleepwalking however is not part of REM sleep disorder (although that is a normal guess for many). Sleepwalking happens during a different stage of sleep and has no obvious relation to dreams. The sleepwalker seems to be in a very low conscious state, they will usually act in their own character. The dangers you’ve heard about waking them up are all false.

Quotes

‘Dreaming is an act of pure imagination, attesting in all men a creative power, which, if it were available in waking, would make every man a Dante of Shakespeare’ – F.H. Hedge

‘ Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives’ – Charles William Dement

‘Only in our dreams are we free, the rest of the time we need wages’ – Terry Pratchett