Dreams as a mirror of the psyche

For a long time, brain researchers were convinced that only meaningless discharges occur in our sleeping heads. Current studies now show that dreams are no coincidence. And everyone can use it for themselves.

Dream 1:
I dream that I am diving for a diamond in a waterfall. Flowers grow on the shore. A dog balances by on a rope and gives me tips. i can talk to him I find that quite normal.”

Dream 2:
“I am walking down a street. I’m afraid. A dark car is getting closer. Suddenly the sidewalk is so steep that I can no longer walk away. The car stops next to me. Masked men open the doors. I scream – and wake up.”

Two dreams that couldn’t be more different. But they only show a small excerpt from the endless variety of programs that our head cinema has ready night after night. We dream of bizarre landscapes, erotic escapades and chases. We flee, fly, fall. Sometimes as almighty heroes, sometimes as defenseless victims. But why? Why doesn’t our mind shift down a gear at night too? As before, dream researchers can only partially answer many questions. But what they have found out so far proves that without nocturnal visions, our psyche would be completely different.

where do dreams come from

“Dreams reflect the psychological experience during sleep,” says Prof. Michael Schredl, scientific director of the sleep clinic at the Central Institute for Mental Health in Mannheim. For a long time, doctors and psychologists erroneously assumed that our brains “switched off” during sleep . “Dreams were thought to be the result of random activity in a few nerve cells, meaningless aimless firing of neurons,” says Schredl. “Today we know: Our thinking, experiencing and feeling while awake continues during sleep.”
What happens in the head at night is anything but coincidence.“Dreaming is a goal-directed, motivated process,” says Prof. Marc Solms, a neuropsychologist at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town and one of the best-known dream researchers. “The instinctive, emotional part of our consciousness is uncovered.” Joy and longing, but also fears and worries break through unfiltered . Only reason pauses. We learn a lot about ourselves, about what occupies us deep down. “Above all, stirring emotions lead to intense dreams with strong images,” confirms expert Schredl.

Do dreams make you creative?

Frederick Banting discovered insulin in a dream, Elias Howe created the sewing machine – allegedly. Schredl does not find such legends absurd: “In a study we were able to determine that around eight percent of dreams have a creative effect on waking life .” The subjects found suggestions for vacation trips and new hobbies, solved relationship problems or suddenly knew what mobilizes their defective computer.
“I dreamed that I was on stage. Only I was there, without an audience. I sang, heard thunderous applause – and decided to take singing lessons,” says Schredl’s institute’s dream collection. Nice and good. But what use is the best idea if it vanishes into thin air when the alarm clock rings? “In the evening, make a firm resolution to remember a dream in the morning,” advises Schredl. “Put a pen and paper by the bed. Write down your dream as soon as you wake up.”

Nocturnal visions of the psyche

Do women dream differently than men?

Scientists have been able to pin down only a few differences. Women dream more often about interpersonal conflicts , their home environment and clothing. Men meet strangers more often , dream of aggression, weapons and, more often, of sex. About every 10th man’s dream is erotic, with women every 30. Bad dreams predominate in both sexes. The main character is always the dreamer himself. Only children under the age of three are more likely to dream of animals than of themselves. Houses, cars, other vehicles and movement – flying, fleeing, falling – are among the universal dream themes for women and men worldwide.

Why do dreams often develop bizarrely?

“The director of the dream knows no censorship, no limits and no shame,” says the American dream researcher Prof. Ernest Hartmann from Tufts University in Massachusetts. When we’re awake, our conscience, internalized societal rules, and our knowledge of physics—“people can’t jump from house to house”—are constantly sparking between our thoughts. In dreams we can fly or mix scenes from our childhood with experiences from yesterday. One person transforms into another over the course of the night or appears in an impossible place.
Sometimes we meet people who are already dead. “A dream creates connections in the brain that are more extensive than in waking consciousness,” explains Hartmann. Nevertheless – or precisely because of this? – we very rarely get the idea that we are dreaming at night, so we are constantly deceiving ourselves about our condition.

Why do we have so many bad dreams?

Because in the sleeping brain all emotional systems are active uninhibitedly – even those in which fear and anxiety have their origin. Theta waves surge through the gray cells. This usually happens when someone or something actually threatens us – or we are dreaming in REM sleep. Prof. Antti Revonsuo from the University of Turku in Finland therefore suspects that dreams also function as a kind of training . Many of the experiences that our ancestors had with saber-toothed tigers and other prehistoric monsters were stored in our genome. According to Revonsuo, if we have bad dreams, such survival tricks are transferred to memory. Maybe that’s why embryos already spend half the day in REM sleep.
For adults, on the other hand, it is only two hours a night on average. Bad dreams also have a therapeutic function . Sounds paradoxical, but it is confirmed by more and more studies. “They help us to relive negative experiences in a different brain state,” says Dr. Matthew Walker from the University of California. “That takes away their emotional acuity.” The content changes over time, especially in the case of recurring nightmares. ‘
” Redressing(roughly: new clothes) is what Walker calls this process: At the beginning, what is happening is very similar to the real experience. Then more and more memories from other life episodes, fantasized elements or scraps of memory from books and films are woven into the dream. “After a few weeks, the traces of fear are lost in the thicket of the biographical. The dream and with it the experience becomes a part of ourselves,” explains Prof. Hartmann. That doesn’t always work.

When do people with nightmares need help?

Traumatic experiences or extreme stress can cause the therapeutic effect of dreaming to fail. The nightmares then become so distressing that they haunt those affected throughout the day. They cause problems falling asleep and sleeping through the night or trigger depression. Rule of thumb: Anyone who has had at least one nightmare a week for more than six months should go to a sleep medicine or behavioral therapy outpatient clinic. Because therapists know ways to get rid of the distressing terrifying images, for example with “Imagery Rehearsal Therapy”, or IRT for short . With this method from the USA, those affected learn how to rewrite the “script” of their dreams themselves during the day.
“Few of those affected know that nightmares can be treated quickly and effectively with psychotherapy,” says Prof. Ulrich Stangier, head of the behavioral therapy outpatient clinic at the University of Frankfurt, where an IRT effectiveness study is currently being carried out. The first results sound promising: “Within just one hour of therapy, we helped people who had been suffering from nightmares for decades,” explains Stangier’s colleague Kathrin Hansen. Her patients had to learn again to see dreams primarily as a particularly vivid form of consciousness that we can change – and enjoy.

Common dream motives

Lucid dreams – how does it work?

The dreaming brain does not know that it is dreaming. On the contrary: it pretends that the sleeper is in a different state. Only when he rubs his eyes in irritation in the morning does he realize what was going on. It is different with so-called lucid dreaming: Here the dreamer knows that he is dreaming because the areas of the brain behind the forehead that control consciousness, attention and decision-making processes are active. In this way, the lucid dreamer can intervene in what is happening at night.

The highlight: Anyone can learn and train this skill! Athletes or musicians use them, for example, to practice movement sequences. In psychotherapy it is used to change nightmares. How it works? Prof. Michael Wiegand, Head of the Sleep Medicine Center at the Technical University of Munich, gives a simple piece of advice: “Keep asking yourself in your mind whether you are dreaming. Then at some point you take this question with you from the waking state into the dream.”

What happens in the brain while we dream?

We also dream in other sleep phases, but most vividly in REM sleep (REM stands for “rapid eye movement”, rapid eye movements that occur around 12:30 a.m. for the first time). If you now measure the brain waves, it looks like a storm is coming. The stimulating messenger acetylcholine floods the nerve cells in the brain. Instead of calm delta waves, alpha, beta and theta waves crash through each other. Especially the emotional circuits and the motivational center are active. The brain is isolated from the outside world.

The five most common dream motifs worldwide

  • Flying: A dream that conveys the feeling of being free from everyday stress. Question: Are you (too) strongly “connected”?
  • Fleeing: This motive is often based on “fleeing” from problems or a difficult decision. Question: Who/what is following you?
  • Falling: This is how the fear of “falling” or letting go of something/someone is revealed. Question: What is your “height of fall”?
  • Being naked: This is often due to the concern of falling out of character. Question: Do you have to act differently than you feel right now?
  • Tooth loss: Doubts about one’s own attractiveness. Question: Should you show “more teeth”?

Crystal Waston MD

Crystal Waston has a degree in Cross Media Production and Publishing. At vital.de she gives everyday tips and deals with topics related to women's health, sport, and nutrition.

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