Turns out, at least part of the reason may be critical thinking, suggests Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett who presented her theory in 2010 at the Association for Psychological Science meeting in Boston. Scientists have long wondered why we dream, with answers ranging from Sigmund Freud's idea that dreams fulfill our wishes to the speculation that these wistful journeys are just a side effect of rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep. This ability could help war veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Gackenbach reasoned. That level of control may also help gamers turn a bloodcurdling nightmare into a carefree dream, she found in a 2008 study. "Gamers are used to controlling their game environments, so that can translate into dreams." Her past research has shown that people who frequently play video games are more likely than non-gamers to have lucid dreams where they view themselves from outside their bodies they were also better able to influence their dream worlds, as if controlling a video-game character. "If you're spending hours a day in a virtual reality, if nothing else it's practice," Gackenbach told LiveScience in 2010. The link? Both represent alternate realities, said Jayne Gackenbach, a psychologist at Grant MacEwan University in Canada.
If you're interested in lucid dreaming, you may want to take up video gaming. She found women's dreams/nightmares could be grouped into three categories: fearful dreams (being chased or having their life threatened) dreams involving the loss of a loved one or confused dreams. And comparing notes in the morning may not be a turn-on for either guys or gals, as women are more likely to have experienced nightmares, suggests doctoral research reported in 2009 by psychologist Jennie Parker of the University of the West of England. The results suggest the incipient stages of these neurodegenerative disorders might begin decades before a person, or doctor, knows it.Īs in their wake hours, men also dream about sex more than women do. Such violent dreams may be an early sign of brain disorders down the line, including Parkinson's disease and dementia, according to research published online July 28, 2010, in the journal Neurology.
Here's some of what we know about what goes on in dreamland.Īs if nightmares weren't bad enough, a rare sleep disorder - called REM sleep behavior disorder - causes people to act out their dreams, sometimes with violent thrashes, kicks and screams. But as scientists are able to probe deeper into our minds, they are finding some of those answers.
Why do some people have nightmares while others really spend their nights in bliss? Like sleep, dreams are mysterious phenomena. But the cells firing in your brain are very much awake, sparking enough energy to produce the sometimes vivid and sometimes downright haunted dreams that take place during the rapid-eye-movement stage of your sleep. When your head hits the pillow, for many it's lights out for the conscious part of you.