Dream | Night-Time Movie? What is it?

Dreams are thoughts that occur involuntarily in a person's mind when the person is asleep.

What actually is a dream? Why do we have it?

 You will be knowing about a few fundamental assets of dreaming by the end of this article.

What is this Dream that we experience?

Dreams are a succession of thoughts that occur in a person's mind while the person is asleep.The
scientific study of dreams is called  oneirology. The thoughts we experience come in many forms like images, sensations, emotions, ideas, etc. A person may feel that he/she is awake and in the dream environment while she is asleep but actually the person is just thinking. There are different stages of sleep and dreams occur mostly in the REM(rapid-eye-movement) phase of sleep when brain activity is high. A normal person experiences 3 to 7 dreams per night. The duration of a dream may vary from 2-3 seconds to 20-30 minutes. Sometimes the person truly realizes that he is having a dream but continues on having the dream this is called a lucid dream. In a lucid dream the person can control the actions of the dream.A dream may be scary, adventurous, exciting, etc. Dreams sometimes can make a creative thought of inspiration to the person. 

Dreams are movies you can watch without paying money!

What is REM sleep?

Dreams create a magical environment in the room of unconsciousness.

REM(rapid-eye-movement) sleep is a certain stage of sleep when the brain activity is high. The duration of REM sleep is normally around 2 hours or so. The dreams that occur in this period of time tend to be more memorable and clear. If the person is waken up during this time, the person has a better chance of remembering all his dreams. The dreams that occur outside this stage of the sleep are less memorable and tend to make the person believe that he or she has experienced more dreams than usual. Children are most likely to remember a dream.Nobody really knows the purpose or content of dreaming. REM sleep duration gets more and more as the duration of the sleep increases. 

Some other effects of Dreaming.

Many researchers propose that dreams serve to alleviate emotional distress. So by this logic, dreams present distressing scenarios that symbolize similar life events and help dreamers heal from those events while they sleep.

Now a recent study by researchers from the University of Alberta compares the short-term effects of nightmares, which the authors define as primarily containing fear and harm; existential dreams, "in which sadness and separation are salient"; and transcendent dreams, which focus on "awe and magical accomplishment." The results of the study indicate that existential dreams are most strongly related to "self-perceptual depth," meaning that they address weighty topics such as spiritual conviction, life's meaning, and so forth.

Source: 'The Wikipedia' & 'Greater Good Science Center'.
Author: Ethan Debnath.