Why do you have so many dreams at night?

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Published: 11/13/2021

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“All the same dreams! Damn dreams! – with incomprehensible consistency, the monarchist Khvorobyov was tormented by “Soviet” dreams in “The Golden Calf” by Ilf and Petrov. The comical situation described in the novel actually turns into a psychological problem for some. If you have dreams every night and an obsessive bad “aftertaste” remains after them, then you should first understand the reasons for the night visions, and only then look for ways to get rid of unpleasant images.

• 1 How the brain forms dreams
• 2 The role of emotional perception
• 3 Factors of nightly dreams 3.1 Psychological causes of terrible dreams
• 3.2 Physical and esoteric causes of negative dreams

New information, emotions and experiences

According to scientists, dreams are a kind of protective reaction of the brain, which manifests itself as a result of receiving a large amount of different information throughout the day. Nerve brain cells located in the subcortex area begin to work at a slower pace due to overwork. As a result, the information accumulated during the day is partially deleted, which manifests itself in the form of dreams.

The brain reacts in a similar way to psycho-emotional stress.

If during the day a person has experienced a lot of feelings and emotions (no matter positive or negative), then this increases the likelihood of night dreams

According to this theory, it can be assumed that dreams are very often experienced by people who lead an active lifestyle, have a wide circle of friends, develop and regularly receive a large amount of new information. Most often, dreams are seen by creative and emotional people, since their central nervous system and brain are subject to increased stress and require relaxation.

Positive emotions contribute to vivid and rich dreams

Dreams are most often a kind of reflection of what happened to a person during the day.

Therefore, bright positive emotions will most likely lead to an unusual dream at night, filled with various locations and changing events.

Most often, the plots are not related to each other, but can be united by a common idea. For example, when the action takes place in one place or certain moments are repeated.

During periods of eventful events, a person’s senses become more intense and he sees more vivid dreams. Sometimes their number exceeds the standard 5 dreams per night. In some cases, the sleeper believes that he is dreaming more dreams than usual. However, he simply remembers more of them.

Numerous studies confirm the relationship between the emotional background and the occurrence of colored dreams. The more events that happened to you during the day, the greater the chances of having a dream in which bright colored details will be present.

But you should not deliberately lead an active lifestyle in order to provoke the emergence of numerous plots. It is likely that your dreams are already quite interesting and unusual, you just don’t remember them. It’s better to use different techniques for memorizing night visions. Even people who lead a calm and measured lifestyle can have vivid and interesting dreams.

Sleep quality disorders

The very mechanism of the appearance of dreams is explained by the fact that even during night sleep the brain cannot completely relax and continues its work. While the entire body is resting, this organ processes and analyzes the information received by a person throughout the day, displaying it in a slightly modified form . For this reason, some people can dream very often, almost daily.

However, when the deep sleep phase begins, a person simply cannot remember what he dreamed of at night. Experts, having conducted a number of scientific studies and tests, have proven that people remember their dreams only when awakening occurs in the rapid phase.

Reasons for frequent dreams

Therefore, if you have dreams every night and a person remembers them well, this may be due to impaired sleep quality , disorders in the central nervous system, stressful situations and psycho-emotional shocks.

Too frequent dreams are not a very good signal , because if the deep sleep phase does not occur, then the body cannot fully rest and recover during the night, which will subsequently negatively affect its health and ability to work.

Therefore, it is worth taking care to improve the quality of your sleep

How the brain forms dreams

People have been engaged in unraveling the tangle of events and images, interpreting familiar or strange plots in dreams for a long time. Why do some people have dreams every night, while others claim that they don’t see them at all?

The sleep cycle during the night includes alternation of several phases - slow (orthodox) and fast (paradoxical). Dreams accompany a person throughout the entire cycle. However, if you wake up a person sleeping in the stage of slow-wave sleep, the person will not remember anything. And, on the contrary, awakening in the fast phase will record the picture seen. Consequently, everyone dreams, unless the absence of night dreams is associated with physical head injuries.

The dilemma of why people dream every day has not yet been fully resolved by scientists.

The famous Russian physiologist I.P. Pavlov suggested that sleep plays the role of a protective barrier for the brain, tired from the influx of daytime information. Neurons of the cerebral cortex form the mechanism of dreams and are responsible for impulses transmitted to the central nervous system, and then to all organs.

Nerve cells are rebooted and regenerated, daytime information is rethought and often serves as the plot of a night dream. True, not all dreams fall under this definition. For example, Paul McCartney dreamed of the melody Yesterday, and for director James Cameron, the reason for creating the famous “Terminator” was his nightmares.

According to Freudian theory, dreams are a reflection of reality recorded in the subcortex. That is, people only dream of familiar images and famous events. Then what about the table of chemical elements that Mendeleev saw in his dream?

Some scientists believe that dreams are psychological garbage, from which the body is freed as if from ballast.

A significant breakthrough in this issue has been achieved by neurophysiologists and psychologists. According to scientists, people constantly dream because the brain does not completely rest, but continues to analyze previous events. An interesting idea is the role of dreams as a factor that cements impressions for their subsequent extraction from the recesses of memory.

Recommendations for improving sleep quality

To improve the quality of your sleep and achieve complete relaxation, pay attention to the following recommendations from experts:

If these recommendations do not have the desired effect, then you should seek advice from a specialist, especially if you have symptoms such as increased fatigue, sleepiness during the day, causeless anxiety and irritability.

People who are endowed with a good imagination and lead an active lifestyle can dream often, and this is considered the norm. However, if dreams come every night, then you should pay attention to the state of the central nervous system.

More interesting information on the topic in the video:

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How often do people see dreams and the reasons for their occurrence?

At first glance, it is very simple to solve this issue - interview as many people as possible; However, with such a survey, there are some difficulties that do not allow an accurate answer to the question posed.

Dreams are somewhat more common in women than in men. As for patients, their frequency was different than that of healthy people. If in healthy people the presence of dreams was noted in approximately 70% of cases, then in patients - in 78.2%, and with different diseases, the number of dreams per night varied greatly. At the same time, we were unable to find a person who had never had dreams throughout his entire life. If we compare the frequency of dreams in various diseases, it turns out that in acute and somatic diseases dreams were observed in 100% of cases. They were somewhat less common for chronic illnesses - about 93%. This shows that the frequency of their occurrence is directly dependent on the severity and severity of infectious and somatic diseases. Among ailments of the nervous system, dreams were most often recorded in patients suffering from neuroses and less often in mental disorders. At the same time, it was noticed that the more severe the patient’s condition, the less often he saw dreams.

A sharp increase in the number of dreams per night was also noted when staying in unfavorable conditions:

The same thing was noticed in acute diseases such as:

Frequency of dreams by profession

To trace the extent to which the frequency of dreams depends on human activity, let’s consider how often adults, practically healthy people of different professions see them.

The table clearly shows that the percentage of dreams out of the number of dreams that fall asleep is much higher among people with mental work (teachers, doctors, students) and much less among people engaged in manual labor (unskilled workers and nurses). For the same person, depending on stress, work activity, family, household and other characteristics, the frequency of dreams may be different. In this case, both the functional state of the nervous system and the nature of the activity or the nature of external conditions matter.

Bad habits cause bad dreams

If you go to bed under the influence of alcohol, be prepared for nightmares. Drinking alcohol, especially in large quantities, affects the quality of night's rest. Usually alcohol causes relaxation, the person almost immediately goes into a deep phase.

But after a few hours, harmful substances are eliminated from the body. Sleep from deep becomes more and more superficial. This explains why in the second half of the night a person who has drunk alcohol sleeps worse, and by the morning he cannot sleep at all.

It is a mistake to consider alcohol a good sleeping pill. Under its influence, the standard 6 - 7 alternating cycles of deep and shallow sleep are replaced by 2 - 3. There is no question of good rest; a person wakes up exhausted and tired. The brain practically does not rest, which naturally causes nightmares during the night. Problems that arise after drinking alcohol:

• sleep becomes superficial;
• frequent awakenings occur;
• I have bad dreams.

The main cause of nightmares is disruption of normal brain activity. Under the influence of alcohol, numerous malfunctions occur, which causes frightening visions. It doesn't matter how much you drink. Even a glass of wine once a week can affect the state of the nervous system. If you drink strong drinks, it puts a lot of stress on your body. A hangover is a reaction to poisoning from alcohol-containing products. The psyche also reacts to stress, sending you frightening pictures at night.

If alcohol consumption occurs on a regular basis (for example, on weekends, as a way to relax after a week of work), this is a serious prerequisite for the occurrence of insomnia and accompanying nightmares. Most often, a person whose brain is clouded by alcohol fumes sees in a dream a chase from which he cannot tear himself away, monsters, wild animals.

Thanks to such visions, the subconscious helps the psyche relieve accumulated stress. On the one hand, this is useful, but on the other hand, constant night terrors usually indicate the presence of other serious mental problems, in addition to alcohol addiction.

Often nightmares signal problems that could not be solved in reality.

For physical and mental stress

For people with mental work, with moderate physical activity, the number of occurrences of dreams decreases. Persons who systematically engage in physical education or physical labor dream less often, on average, by 10-15% than those who do not engage in physical labor or physical education. However, with heavy physical exertion, a certain increase in the appearance of dreams is expected for both people with mental work and people with physical work. Only in the former the frequency grows faster than in the latter. With physical fatigue, dreams appear almost every night in people of all professions and nervous constitutions. But even here, sometimes there were cases when a very sound sleep without dreams occurred.

In deep and shallow sleep

In life and in the clinic, we are already accustomed to judging the depth of sleep by the presence of dreams. Usually, an abundance of dreams indicates shallow sleep. The vast majority of modern researchers believe that dreams are more often observed during the period of active sleep, when the activity of the cortex and other parts of the brain increases and, consequently, the depth of sleep decreases.

The majority of people studied (92.6%) indicated the coincidence of dreams and shallow sleep and, conversely, the absence of dreams during good deep sleep.

The nature of changes in brain activity during night rest

During sleep, people see images. For a long time they tried to understand the nature of their occurrence, decipher the secret meaning, and wanted to control them. In the Middle Ages, dreams were considered either the messages of angels or the machinations of the devil.

Esotericism, the doctrine of self-knowledge, tries to interpret visions. Psychology also finds out why we constantly have dreams, where and why they come from, because the brain must rest. The nature of this phenomenon is not fully understood even now. But the veil of secrecy has been lifted; much can be explained from a scientific point of view.

It seems that the brain does not work during sleep. But this is not so, he constantly works. Only the nature of the activity changes. The central organ of the nervous system reacts less to external stimuli and begins to classify and process the information it received during the day. It is analyzed, compared with the existing one and “sent for storage.”

In the arms of Morpheus, distractions fade into the background, many events are perceived differently, and new details become visible.

If there is no proper rest, this process is disrupted, causing information to be poorly recorded and memory to become worse.

Factors in nightly dreams

Psychologists made an interesting conclusion after numerous studies: negative dreams are more often seen by pessimists, insecure people, and skeptics. By understanding the motive of nightmares, you can get rid of them faster.

Psychological causes of scary dreams

Worries about loved ones, pangs of conscience for a committed offense are factors that can lead to a person’s psycho-emotional instability. And a negative emotional background leads to bleak dreams. Psychological motives underlie sad dreams.

• A shock for a person, leading to nightmare visions, is the death of loved ones or relatives. Divorce, an act of violence, conflicts at work are phenomena that leave a deep psychological mark on a person’s soul. Only time will help get rid of heart wounds.
• Serious health problems worry not only during the day, but also at night the brain continues to analyze a difficult situation.
• Extreme situations with the release of large amounts of adrenaline and cortisol (stress hormone) often have a detrimental effect on the human psyche and lead to restless dreams.
• Thoughts about the upcoming important report, the fear of not completing an important task or making incorrect calculations excite the nervous system, preventing you from completely relaxing and relaxing. The result is interrupted sleep due to nightmares.
• Excessive physical and mental fatigue during the day does not guarantee sound sleep at night. On the contrary, fatigue often causes insomnia or bad dreams.
• Family scandals and showdowns, especially in the evening, are an additional reason for negative visions.
• Watching thrillers or programs with traumatic plots before bed is undesirable for impressionable people.

The saying “We all come from childhood” is filled with deep meaning, because childhood impressions are reinforced for life. In the same way, psychological traumas received at an early age are temporarily relegated to the corners of the subconscious, and over time they can transform into nightmares.

Physical and esoteric causes of negative dreams

Daily unpleasant night dreams do not allow a person to fully rest, which harms the body. But if in order to eliminate psychological causes it is important to learn to control one’s own nerves, then some of the physiological factors are completely removable.

• Scary dreams are often caused by a painful condition with a high fever.
• Diseases of the cardiovascular system and asthma, leading to impaired respiratory function, are often accompanied at night by visions of suffocation.
• Overeating leads to sleep disorders. The discomfort of resting with a full stomach is reflected in bad dreams.
• The cause of nightmares lies in alcohol abuse and smoking, which leads to vasospasm.
• Side effects when taking a group of medications: antidepressants, barbiturates, tranquilizers are expressed in nighttime disturbances and nightmares.
• Failure to comply with sleep hygiene: stuffy, stale air, uncomfortable bed, extraneous noise, bright light affect the subjects of dreams. External stimuli, influencing the subconscious, build negative images and situations in night dreams.

The original explanation for nightmares is given by esoteric parapsychologists. If a person was in a negative situation during the day: sad, angry, offended, and when communicating with other people he was recharged by someone else’s energy, then his astral energy increases.

The person himself becomes a beacon for hostile entities in the astral world who need energy recharge. “Hungry spirits,” as Tibetan monks call them, often hide in the souls of the dead. To help attach to a person’s luminous astral body is the main task of the entities. At the moment of attachment (sometimes at this time the person shudders sharply) a nightmare vision occurs.

The amazing world of dreams

People experience completely different night visions. They differ in brightness, plots, and experiences. They can be divided into several types:

It is believed that significant dreams can occur on certain days. The images that are important are those that you dreamed about before waking up (not necessarily in the morning), that are vivid and memorable. They are more filled with events, meaning and possible solutions to problems.

To interpret these plots, many dream books and tips on deciphering them are published. They explain that in an unfamiliar place, a night image can be prophetic; a guy in a girl’s dream is most likely her future husband.

Deciphering the concept of “dream”

A dream is a visual imagery, psychological images that arise in a person during sleep. Z. Freud considered them the realization of secret desires. There are scientists who do not see any meaning in night dreams.

Dreams are very closely intertwined with real life and convey their messages to it. They reflect the inner world of a person. Black and white images emerge from the immediate subconscious, reveal your personality, and help you understand yourself better. If only such dreams arise, a person relies exclusively on himself in life, relies on his own strength.

The phase that promotes the formation of dreams

Dreams happen all the time, at all stages of sleep, but they have their own differences. The slow phase accounts for 75% of the total duration. It is during this period that a person can talk in his sleep, get up, and walk. During it, dreams are fragmentary, dim, and often not connected with each other. They do not carry much meaning and are usually not remembered.

REM sleep is much shorter and may not occur at all during the daytime. It is easy to notice that the sleeper is in this phase by the movement of the eyeballs. The information, emotions, and impressions received during the day are processed. It is during such a period that it is possible to see colorful dreams with a dynamic plot and deep emotional experiences.

Overwork and stress cause negative dreams

Stressful situations that provoke depression do not have the best effect on night's rest. It has been proven that the more problems a person has at work, school or in his personal life, the worse he sleeps. Most often, insomnia is caused by an obsessive search for a way out of the current situation. A person cannot get thoughts of how to solve a problem out of his head, even when he goes to bed.

The more you think about difficulties, the more you load your subconscious with them. It, in turn, also tries to find a way out, but demonstrates this most often through dreams.

Separately, you should consider a situation in which you have many recurring dreams. They usually talk about deep emotional experiences. A person who has recurring nightmares often cannot cope alone. He needs the support of loved ones or the help of a psychotherapist.

Night terrors occur against the background of stressful situations or depression. Excessive stress on the psyche causes various nightmares, which can vary from night to night. Sometimes the sleeper wakes up screaming or crying. A person sleeps poorly, wakes up frequently and the feeling of fatigue does not go away due to chronic lack of sleep. Lack of quality sleep prevents the body from fighting.

You should not try to get rid of bad dreams with the help of sleeping pills, you can only make the situation worse. It is allowed to use natural remedies to improve sleep. Drink infusions of soothing herbs and properly organize your sleeping area. But the main thing is to find out the reason that causes nightmares and deal with it.

People who don't dream

All people see dreams, usually more than one per night. But not everyone remembers their visions well; on average, this is 2-3 cases per week. There are people who believe that they do not dream. They just don't remember them.

The sleep of such a person is very deep; he wakes up in the slow-wave sleep phase and forgets his dreams. If you wake him up at the end of REM sleep, he will be able to remember what he saw in his dream. There are situations when a person did not have dreams for a long time, but at some point he began to have dreams every day.