Dreams

The following dream on September 17, 2010 is true. Names have been changed to protect the identities of those in the dream that are seen in reality. Also even though details could be added to the dream, it is best to keep it as the way it was remembered.

I’m on a school bus with my boyfriend John; he is tired and upset about something. I have him rest for a bit and lay his head in my lap until we get to his house. There is a party with friends until they all freeze and John is gone along with his mother. I find a small light and also discover a person with a mixture of colors in their eyes. Suddenly I’m pushed through a portal and get in trouble with a train moving by its self. I then get saved by a woman who drops two marble and a bag of pebbles. We return to the house and everything is back to normal. (a brief moment when I wake up) I’m in the house with no one in it and find the same person with the glowing eyes but now they are a red-violet color and holds out the portal to me. A girl pops out and says that I’m not good enough and I will taint the portal but I’m allowed in anyway.

This dream of mine held the answers to some of the problems I was having in my junior year. How do dreams provide answers, you ask? Well I’ll tell you right after we discuss what happens to the brain when we are sleeping; from a waking state to a deep slumber state.

There are two kinds of sleep the occur when we go to bed; REM and Non-REM sleep. Non-REM sleep is where we do not dream at all, which allows our body to repair cells and grow new ones. Out of the five stages, non-REM is seen in the first four. The graph to the right gives a brief description to what happens to our brain (brain waves) and body during those stages. REM or rapid eye movement sleep, is the last stage of our slumber. We enter this stage approximately 90 minutes after falling sleeping and stay in a dream for a short amount of time. Again referring to the graph; even though the first time we go into REM sleep is relatively short, stages 2, 3 and 4 cycle back, allowing our next dream to be longer then the one before. The moments inbetween the dreams, especially in stage 2, could be times when you see nothing but a blank, black screen or when you wake up to go to the bathroom or change positions in bed. It is said that one reason for having REM is for the brain to sort through all of the knoweldge that we pick up on that day and discard any that it names unneccessary. Think about it, what we remember and do on a daily routine is based on what our brains accept to be useful. So lets say, a man in the wild learned how to hunt, build a tent, making a bowl out of clay from the ground, and fishing. When he goes to bed, the brain takes everything that was gained and gets rid of the memory of making a bowl out of clay becasue it did not fit what was need for him to survive in his environment. It is unknown on how the brain discards information the way it does, so research is still needed for the future. The result of having both Non-REM and REM is very effective to our sleep because without non-REM our brain would also be active removing valuable information and our body would never be able to restore itself and without REM our brain would be full or overloading with data.

Now, since we got that our of the way, let's talk about dreams. During the time our brain is cleaning up, we are presented with events or situations that we must solve based on our waking life. This could be from stress, fear, love, or anxiety that our brain picks up while working. Even though the dream might seem weird (clowns, peope in barrels, etc.) it has hidden messages that explain items and actions in the dream that connet to a problem. For example; your riding a car with a friend on a road with muddy puddles all over it, then suddenly it turns into a roller skate and your friend is tells you where to go but you enter a building that closes shut behind you. First, you are in a car that you are in control of which can be a symbol of your life. The friend of course could just be a someone that you know or will meet in the future, however this friend is guiding you through the upcoming problems or puddy puddles when you should be one in control. Plus the car turns into a roller skate, which can be seen to be very clumsy if you don't have any balance or skill. The building could be a safe place once you have passed all troubling events, but then again you could be trapped in a situation and never be able to move on from it.

In the end some dreams can be frightening, thrilling, or just plain weird. They provide complicating situations that leave us boggled when waking up, but what can you do they are only reflecting how we feel or act towards certain events.