The first explanation (quoted from Fujian Medical College):
The so-called dream is that the usual wishes or fears appear unchecked during sleep. Freud, an Austrian psychiatrist and founder of psychoanalysis, pointed out: "Dreams are things that the repressed subconscious mind rises to consciousness."
Everyone dreams. In our dreams, there are often things related to exams. Most dreams find the problem difficult and time is tight, but they still can't do it. I woke up when I was in a hurry. This shows that exams have a great influence on our psychology. Another situation is that if someone likes someone, they can often meet in their dreams, although they usually don't meet or even have a chance to talk. However, after waking up, I will feel very sorry and painful about what happened in my dream.
One: the reason for dreaming.
1969, David Fox of emory university did an experiment. When the sleeper is in a heterogeneous sleep state and has strong eye movements, he wakes up the subject and asks him what dream he just had. Then sum up all kinds of situations and draw the following conclusions.
Most of the subjects' dreams are things they care about, such as exams and falling in love. In other cases, such as some people are thirsty, hungry or urinating during sleep, their dreams are basically related to these things. Therefore, these dream stories that connect their own things are meaningless at all. Therefore, some people think that dreams are just an exercise to connect various feelings and events. But someone put forward two hypotheses about dreams through computer models.
British psychologist Christopher Evans put forward a hypothesis. He thinks that dreams are like removing the terminal of a computer, reprogramming it, and then checking it. So sleep is to cut off the input of external signals, and the motion system is in such a rest state. On this basis, dreams test the brain's programs, and then recompile and polish them to train the brain's ability to apply the latest signals to future events.
According to Evans, we humans can be said to be social animals. Therefore, social animals must be divided or classified according to their personality, and this process must be rapid and agile, and dreaming can make this rapid classification exercise.
Another powerful theory also comes from the electronic computer model. The proponent of this theory is francis crick, who is famous for inventing the DNA double helix model.
Crick considered two situations: "mammals have large neocortex" and "mammals and birds have sleep". From the two points of "the cardiac cortex contains crisscross nerve fibers" and "the connection between nerve cells is exciting", we can think that the cerebral cortex is composed of several exciting units or elements. The connection between nerves has three characteristics: the first is divergent afferent; The second is the integrity of strength; The third is polymerization.
The excitation signal enters the local part of this network structure. As the processing feature of this part, as long as there is a signal input, there is a corresponding moderate signal output. When there are signals related to several synapses, there will be interrelated signal outputs.
Therefore, if we associate their abnormal mental state with this computer model, there will be the following relations: (1) When the synaptic connection is too much or not smooth, "fantasy" will occur; (2) No matter what signal is input, it will excite the same loop (compulsive concept); (3) Even if inappropriate stimuli generally do not cause reactions, reactions (hallucinations) will occur.
Crick believes that when an electronic computer makes a mistake, it can cut off the shallow road and check it, but the human brain is different. It can only check shallow roads when sleeping in different phases. During heterogeneous sleep, the brain is being isolated from normal input and output, and is being stimulated by non-specific stimuli from the brain stem, and this stimulus is very active. This is the so-called unconscious dream.
Two: the big discovery in my dream.
There are also descriptions of dreams in Historical Records, the most famous of which is the description by German chemist Kekule. It is said that he was distressed because he didn't understand the structural formula of a substance. One night, he dreamed of a picture of a snake biting its tail and discovered the structure of benzene ring.
There is another example in the history of medicine. This is the famous "discovery of dreams" by German physiologist Otto Levy. Once, Levy had such a dream: As soon as the vagus nerve was stimulated, its distal end released a substance, which could inhibit the activity of the heart. Then, collect blood from the stopped heart. Because it contains inhibitory substances, if this blood is injected into the heart of another animal, that animal's heart will also stop beating, right? It would be nice if it could be confirmed.
2 dream analysis
So, the next morning, he went to college excitedly. In order to do this experiment, he called in the researchers. When he was ready to explain to everyone, he couldn't remember last night's dream.
No matter what Levi thinks, he can't remember. He thought it would be good to have that dream again, and then he put the paper and pen on his pillow. As a result, he had the same dream again. He recorded the dream as soon as he woke up.
After getting up early in the morning, he hurried to the university and started his "dream experiment". As a result, he achieved great success. He collected the blood of the stopped dog and injected it into a dog's heart, so the dog's heartbeat slowed down and stopped from time to time.
Soon, he announced the results of his experiment to the whole world, and the experiment was carried out all over the world. However, it is incredible that although some researchers have reached the same experimental conclusion as him, in some people's experiments, the hearts of dogs that have received blood injections have not changed at all. So, these people say that Levy is a liar and he has a nervous breakdown.
This is a very normal phenomenon if it is explained by modern knowledge. Stimulating sympathetic nerve will excite the heart and accelerate the heartbeat; When the vagus nerve is stimulated, the heartbeat will slow down; If the stimulus is further enhanced, the heart will stop beating.
As can be seen from the above, people dream mainly because various feelings, such as daily wishes or fears, appear uncontrollably during sleep. But we can also get inspiration from our dreams and achieve success, such as Li Wei's Great Discovery. So we should deal with all kinds of feelings in life, don't put too much pressure on ourselves, and deal with all kinds of difficulties in the right way.
The second explanation (quoted from China Science and Technology News):
Dreaming is a normal and indispensable physiological and psychological phenomenon of human body. After people fall asleep, a small number of brain cells are still active, which is the basis of dreaming. Why do people dream and what happens if they don't dream?
Normal dream activity is one of the important factors to ensure the normal vitality of the body.
Scientists have done some experiments to stop people from dreaming. That is to say, when the sleeper has a dream brainwave, he is immediately awakened to stop his dream from continuing, and so on. The results show that deprivation of dreams will lead to a series of physiological abnormalities of human body, such as blood pressure, pulse, body temperature and skin electrical response ability, and the function of autonomic nervous system will be weakened. At the same time, it will also cause a series of adverse psychological reactions, such as anxiety, tension, irritability, perceptual hallucinations, memory disorders, irritability and so on. Obviously, normal dream activity is one of the important factors to ensure the normal vitality of the body.
Dreams are a way to coordinate the balance of human psychological world.
Because the right hemisphere is dominant when dreaming and the left hemisphere is dominant after awakening, the dynamic balance between nerve regulation and mental activity can be achieved by alternately waking up and dreaming during the 24-hour day and night activities of the body. Therefore, dreams are a way to balance people's psychological world, especially for people's attention, emotions and cognitive activities.
Dreamless sleep is not only of poor quality, but also a sign of brain injury or disease.
Recent research results also confirm this view, that is, dreams are the result of the brain's regulatory center balancing various functions of the body, and dreams are the need for the healthy development of the brain and maintaining normal thinking. If the brain's regulatory center is damaged, dreams will not form, or only some incomplete dream fragments will appear. If you sleep for a long time without dreams, it is worth people's vigilance. Of course, if you have nightmares for a long time, it is often a sign of weakness or some diseases.