The science of studying dreams, that is, the study of dreams, is one of the emerging disciplines in the world. It only became a specialized subject independently in the 1960s. Not long ago, the above problems were discussed at the all-Russian dream research scholars' meeting held in Moscow.
90-minute dream
The ancients called dreams "small deaths". In their view, when a person dreams, his soul leaves the body, so it is not appropriate to wake the sleeping person, because his soul may not return to the body.
Scientists today have different understandings of dreams. As we all know, everyone's sleep is divided into two stages-rapid eye movement sleep stage and slow wave sleep stage, and dreams are in the rapid eye movement sleep stage. Some scientists believe that people actually dream all night, but some dreams are not recorded by the brain. Other scientists believe that every dream has a certain time, about 90 minutes at a time, so people only have four or five dreams a night. Scholars who study dreams agree on one thing: dreaming can reduce the burden on neurons in the cerebral cortex. In addition, the neurons of brain stem cells can inhibit the motor impulses responsible for physical activities during dreaming, so that muscle organs are no longer affected by them. If this protection mechanism doesn't work, the dreamer will move according to the scene in his dream.
Through the study of dreams, scientists believe that dreams are useful to people, and dreams can become excellent "psychologists" and "diagnostic doctors". Moreover, if we can correctly analyze the phenomena in dreams, we can find something and even predict the future.
Learn to carry your dream through to the end.
Dreams are the vane of a person's physical condition. Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, once said that dreams can be used to diagnose diseases. Today's research confirms this hypothesis in many ways. Elena Colabelli Nikova, a researcher at sechenov Institute of Medicine and an associate professor of medicine, believes that when a person dreams that he is sick, it is a signal that the body has the initial symptoms of the disease. Elina Colabelli Nikova always advises her patients to consult an expert immediately after having such a dream. People who often have nightmares of the same content over and over again at night must talk to someone, because it shows that people have encountered unsolvable psychological problems or are about to get sick.
It is a convenient way to effectively treat mental illness to analyze the mechanism of dream images and understand dreams. For example, Chinese and Iranians in Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia have their own unique views on dreams. This nation has no mental depression and suicide, and will not get mental illness. The reason is that they tell their first night dreams to the patriarch every morning, and the patriarch will analyze them and act as psychoanalysts. The Secretary's answer is simple and effective. The patriarch believes that dreams, whether nightmares or good dreams, must be done to the end. For example, if you dream that you fell off a cliff, you just completely fell into the bottom; If you dream of a wild animal coming, you must fight it. This attitude helps to relieve the lingering fear after waking up.
Dreams can inspire.
Dreams can also help people solve some creative problems and make scientific discoveries. In human history, many people solve problems in their dreams. Inventor Erias Huo has been trying to invent a machine that can sew two pieces of cloth for a long time. His desk is full of creative drawings, but he has never found an ideal scheme. On one occasion, Meng Huo woke up in a cold sweat. It turned out that he had a dream that African cannibals were after him. Huo clearly saw in his dream that there was a small hole in the upper part of the spear held by the savage. After he woke up, he immediately fiddled with what he saw in his dream, so he invented today's sewing machine needle.
Einstein said that one of the great discoveries in his life, the famous theory of relativity, originated from a childhood dream. In his dream, he sat on the sleigh and found that the speed was getting faster and faster, so the stars began to deform and became luminous lines. I don't know why this dream has been preserved, which helped him discover the theory of relativity.
Yelena Colabelli Nikova said that creative inspiration and scientific discoveries can also be obtained from dreams, because when we sleep, our brains process the information we get when we wake up like computers. It is this ingenious way of understanding the world that helps the dreamer find the answer that he has been thinking hard for a long time when he is awake. This proves once again that people are not resting when they sleep, but are active. The brain systematically sorts out the information accumulated in a day, filters out some trivial things, focuses on those big things, and then stores them in each memory hole. It is the uninterrupted activity of the brain in dreams that helps to stimulate creative inspiration.
What is a good or bad dream?
If the scientific hypothesis also admits that there are inspiring dreams, the situation is much more complicated when it comes to dreams that can predict the future or so-called good or bad dreams. As Elina Colabelli Nikova said, up to now, science has not confirmed whether there are dreams that indicate good or bad, but at the same time, dream experts often hear their patients say that they have had dreams that can predict the future.
In order to explain this dream, the scientific community has put forward various hypotheses. For example, there is a certain situation in a person's life. When he lies down to sleep, his brain goes on working. Therefore, when people fall asleep, things continue to be logically deduced. Generally speaking, logic can't go wrong, so when people wake up, reality will be interpreted again like a dream.
Another explanation can be given for this kind of dream that indicates good or bad luck. A person had a nightmare, always thinking about it, and even unconsciously arranged his behavior according to what he saw in his dream in real life. When his subconscious entered a fixed action mode, his life scene and dream became a reality. For example, you may dream of quarreling with your friends. After waking up, the dream still lingers for a long time. When I woke up in the morning, I felt that my friend's eyes were a little strange and hypocritical. At this time, you can't help but want to start a conflict. But after a while, you suddenly remembered that this was your quarrel with him in your dream last night. At present, dream interpreters can predict the future by studying dreams, but they dare not say how correct their views are.
Anyway, people's understanding of dreams is still quite superficial, there are still many gaps in the science of dreams, and the mechanism of dreams remains to be revealed.
There is a hypothesis that dreams are a channel to express programmed personal characteristics and a special state of consciousness from the perspective of genetics. Just as the researchers at the Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry in Chechinov said, dreams are a "storeroom" of one's inner memory and a window to the external signal space.