• Question: How do we dream?????????

    Asked by scientistlads to Bob, Katie, Nisha, Sallie, Vee on 4 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Bob Bonwick

      Bob Bonwick answered on 4 Jul 2012:

      This is a tough one. When we sleep most of our waking mind turns off, but some parts stay on. Parts which relate to memory and imagination. I’ve read papers that suggest it’s random firing of the giant cells in our memory centers that allow us to dream, other papers suggest its our brains way of making sense of the days activities and it merges with other days, or things we are thinking about most activly. I’m not an expert in sleep (though I do like to have a good sleep), I think Sallie will have a better answer for you on this.

    • Photo: Sallie Baxendale

      Sallie Baxendale answered on 4 Jul 2012:

      Great question! There are 4 stages of sleep and dreaming only occurs in one of them – this is called rapid eye movement sleep or REM sleep for short. If you look at someone when they are in REM sleep you can see their eyes moving under their eyelids – it means they are dreaming! If you stop people from having REM sleep they get very tired and irritable so it looks like we need to dream to stay healthy. You probably have 3-4 episodes of REM sleep a night, but you wont always remember your dreams. Often dreams involve things we have encountered during the day – lots of people have ‘anxiety’ dreams – common ones are where your teeth all fall out, or you realise you are naked at school, or have to sit an exam or go on stage without knowing anything – these dreams normally reflect anxieties we have about health or fitting in.

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