"High intensity training for the mind": A neurosurgeon explains why we dream

[marmar]

"High intensity training for the mind": A neurosurgeon explains why we dream
Plus, are dreams trying to send you a warning about your health?

By MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS
Senior Writer
PUBLISHED JUNE 15, 2024 9:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) Iwoke up exhausted this morning. It’s not that I didn’t get a good sleep — I did. It was just an incredibly busy one, full of running, climbing and at one point flying across a room. As I opened my eyes to the new day, it took a few moments to realize that I had not, in fact, spent a night engaged in intense, impossible physical activity. “Our brains are not resting when we sleep,” explains Rahul Jandial, MD, PhD, whose latest book is “This Is Why You Dream: What Your Sleeping Brain Reveals About Your Waking Life.”

....(snip)....

You open this book with the evolutionary case for our dreams. Why do we need to dream?

The answer is based on neurodevelopmental biology. The fundamental principle of neurons, neural tissue, is that either you use it or you lose it. When we look at brain activation, brain electricity and glucose utilization, our brains are not resting when we sleep. In fact, the electricity can be seen as equivalent. The question then is, what is going on with the brain activation? Imagination and emotion are being liberated, meaning those neurons are activated. They’re using up glucose, they're sparking electricity through neurotransmitters that typically aren't during waking life.

....(snip)....

Some of us always remember our dreams and seem to experience them very vividly, while other people say they never dream. They never think about their dreams; they never remember their dreams. Do you think our dreams then are having the same impact on us in relation to our waking selves?

.....Those people who recall vivid dreams versus those who don't, they have the same brain electricity and the same brain glucose utilization between them. So I think the dreaming process is churning, no matter what the memory. The dream recall varies. And that residue you were talking about is very important. The dreaming brain turning into waking brain is not a crisp moment. There are a few seconds of lingering transitions, called sleep exit. That's an area where you can hold onto a dream memory. People can cultivate this a bit. You can recall your dreams more. Not always, not every time. But just to know that that capacity is there, albeit limited, is fascinating to me. It bookends the sleep entry period, going from waking brain to dreaming brain. There are a few minutes there were people like Salvador Dali said they extracted interesting ideas. So while the recall is variable, the dreaming process is happening robustly in all of us.

....(snip)....

It speaks to an intersection that a lot of us are not always comfortable with. You can't just stay in the science realm here. This is philosophical, what you're talking about here.

When they asked me to prepare this book, I said, “I just need to have one permission — that where there will be gaps of knowledge, I want to say, “I believe. Could it be? I wonder? Wouldn't it be an elegant hypothesis?” I want to be upfront with people. There's no way to say that nightmares arrive in kids to cultivate their sense of self versus other. I can tell you that they arrive at the same time as another capacity called theory of mind, where it becomes, “Somebody smiling doesn't always mean some goodwill for me.” When I put those things together, it's an invitation to people to think about, why do we have to tell Johnny, ’It was only a dream?” That invites the thought that waking thought and dreaming thought before nightmares arrive are blurred. Why do nightmares cluster in families? Falling dreams and teeth falling out dreams don't. I wonder if those universal processes that come through families show where there's a cognitive inheritance, like risk-taking. ................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/06/15/high-intensity-training-for-the-mind-a-neurosurgeon-explains-why-we-dream/

[CrispyQ]

1. I read a novel idea that since vision is the only sense that shuts off when we sleep dreams are that sense acting up.

I didn't put that very well, but you get the idea.

[Bayard]

2. That's interesting, and makes sense

Sometimes I wish my dreams/nightmares were less vivid though.

[mitch96]

12. Same here, If I don't drink for a month or so my dreams are nightly and very vivid. If I have a glass of wine at dinner

I don't have any dreams that I can recall. A few times I have jotted down the "highlights" of dreams on a pad on the night table. I then roll over and go back to sleep. It's done in a half sleep daze.
The next morning I read the note and recall the dream perfectly.
I've had dreams, one in particular that helped me with a problem in my life. The dream sequence helped and I was grateful for that..
m

[bahboo]

3. very interesting article...thx for posting...

[erronis]

4. Fascinating. I usually have very vivid dreams - lucid dreaming.

Sometimes it takes quite a few minutes for me to get re-orientated after awakening.

[orangecrush]

5. I kept a dream journal for a year

It develops intuition.

[mitch96]

13. I have kept a dream journal and a pad next to my bed to jot down the highlights. It helps me to recall the dream

[orangecrush]

15. One time

After about 6 months, I had a dream about a black pickup with electronic billboards on the sides.

Took 2 guys to the store next day, there in parking lot was the black truck with electronic billboards.

Never saw it before.

When we got home, I showed them my journal.

Their jaws dropped.

[rainin]

6. Last night my heart raced for 50 minutes

I wonder if I was having a wild dream. I wear an oximeter at night. My heart rate spikes at regular intervals in the night on most nights. Last night was different. It doubled from 60 to 120 for a full 50 minutes. My oxygen levels were stable throughout. I assume I was dreaming something intense. Anyone else have insight into why this might happen?

[LudwigPastorius]

9. You should get a cardiologist to check for atrial fibrillation.

[rainin]

10. I'll ask at my next appointment

[Johnny2X2X]

7. I have lucid dreams where I am fully aware I am dreaming

Usually just go with it, but occasionally I can direct the dreams exactly how I want them. Been in some adventures.

[mitch96]

11. Same here. I was in a dream and actually said to the dream " this is bullshit, I'm out of here" and woke up..

Other times they scare the shit out of me. I remember trying to say something but only gibberish came out. I came out of the dream still speaking gibberish. I must have sounded very strange if someone was listening.
m

[DENVERPOPS]

8. I thought I read

that Freud talked about Dreams and Interpretation alot. As I recall, he said there is the sub-conscious and the conscious.
During waking hours, there are guards to keep the Sub-Conscious from becoming conscious. But at night the guards are asleep and the sub-conscious invades the Conscious. Or something to that effect........and something about those thoughts coming to the conscious sleep state, and the conscious is wondering what is going on in the back of my mind???? The sub-conscious says: Let me paint you a picture.

There was a lot of criticism of Freud, and I am not a student of psychology. But I do feel that there was a lot of expert opinion and ideas of Freud that have proven themselves correct.

Anyone out there know something about Freud and his legacy?????????

[Elessar Zappa]

14. I had a dream the other night about

a catfish swimming after me in a river and it kept getting bigger and bigger until it was the size of a large shark. I have no idea what that means lol.