Verified Document

Dreaming Is Just One Of The Natural Literature Review Chapter

Dreaming is just one of the natural phenomenons that human beings do during the process of sleeping. Indeed, this natural process is not constrained to any particular characteristic and people with cultural diversity, all age groups and different social backgrounds dream throughout their entire lives. Since dreaming is linked to the mind and soul, thus it is considered that people will continue to dream until they are living (Hobson 2004). Dreaming is an entire chain and cycle of metaphors, feelings, sensation and insight that forms a story while a person is asleep. Since the dreams people see are not in one shape, hence it can be peaceful, thrilling, practical, scary, chaotic, or implausible. This means that during the entire phenomenon of dreaming, a person can hallucinate about humans, houses, places such as cities, hills, rivers and various other things that the individual have not even seen in real life (Hobson 2004).

This course of dreaming can last from few seconds and can go up to several minutes. Additionally, it has been observed that a person can dream up to ten times or even more in just a single night. In fact, more than eighty-five percent of the dreams are not even recalled by the people once they are awakened (Hobson 2004).

The meaning and message of dreams cannot be understood or interpreted by every individual due to the reason that everybody does not have a powerful mind and soul, thus he is not able to clearly perceive the visions of his dreams. In fact, the subconscious fear and desire of an individual are the key components that lead to the dream analysis and elucidation. Therefore, an individual does not even remember his dreams at many occasions. Remembrance or failure to recall the dream is one of the factors that are profoundly reliant upon the sleep and wake-up aspect of the person (Hobson 2004).

The sleeping process and dreaming has a direct relationship to the quality of waking life that incorporates the intellectual sharpness, productivity, creativity, emotional stability, physical strength and even the body weight of a person. This means that the impact of dreams on the overall body functioning of the humans is also one of the grave aspects that cannot be overlooked or ignored. In this regard, numerous researches and investigations have taken place predominantly with the application of the primary research method that has provided a great deal of information with respect to affect of dream and lack of dream on the overall body functioning.

According to one of studies, it has come to notice that a person enters the phase of dreaming from his sleeping time approximately after ninety minutes after he has fallen asleep. However, the analysis of the studies has resulted that a person encounters various physiological changes when he enters in a dream. Rapid eye movement is one of the witnessed changes amongst the people when they enter the phase of dreaming (Harvard Health Publications 2012).

The breathing speed also escalates during dreaming process in comparison to the normal breathing level. Moreover, the dreams also affect the body temperature, heart rate and level of blood pressure of the individual that raise from their normal pace during the time of dreaming. Furthermore, it has also been observed that the arms and leg muscles completely stop working during the time a person is dreaming (Harvard Health Publications 2012).

The brain is also largely affected by the dream sleep procedure as it dominates the memory and learning of an individual in a positive manner. This means that dream sleep or REM (rapid eye movement) sleep is a platform where the brain is refurbished that blends and processes all the gained knowledge and information throughout the day, fortify the memory and would create elements that can boost the mood of the individual during the daytime (Harvard Health Publications 2012).

Another empirical research study has highlighted the piece of information that the memory of the people is likely to get bolstered and strengthened if the people tend to have an appropriate REM sleep and dream. According to the analysis of the study, the connection between sleep and dream on the body functioning has not clearly been understood by the researchers but they have provided evidences that even though body is in a complete relaxed mode but the brains continuously processes and unite the memory during the sleep process (Wilson 2011).

This means that the intellect creates a link and association involving the events occurred during the day, feelings and emotions, and memories. In fact, the phase in which a person is in the REM sleep and dreaming...

The energized feeling would also enable the person to engage him in more active things during the daytime activities. In addition, a positive feeling, mood and behavior would also appear as the normal response from the refreshed people (Wilson 2011).
Emotions are also crucial and critical elements for an individual, however, studies have exposed the piece of information that the dreams have the power to influence, affect and bring change in the emotions of an individual. This means that dreams can leaves its impact on to the subconscious mind of a person that can bring in change to the emotions with reference to a particular event or an entire sequence of events (McNamara 2011).

Change in emotions will ultimately lead to affected behaviors and attitudes of the people in their wakeup lives. REM sleeping and dreaming not only plays a significant role on the emotions but moods, behaviors and decisions of the human beings are also extensively affected such that their social interactions with others are considerably shaped by the dreams they see. This fact has been explicated through a number of researches, nevertheless, according to one of the empirical studies, a significant proportion of the respondents have admitted that their dreams substantially influenced their mood and behaviors in their daytime activities and happenings (McNamara 2011).

According to the sources of study, REM sleep and dreams have the powerful and persuasive characteristics that they can manipulate the mood states of an individual when awake. This is principally because when a person is in its REM sleeping state, the emotional segments of the brain are highly activated, which is intensified as a person dreams, thus it is likely to affect the mood of an individual at the daytime. Particular variables that came to vision during dreams have indicated prevailing associations with the mood, behavior and decisions in the daytime. This substantiates that behaviors, mood swings and decisions of an individual throughout the day has a significant influence over dreams (McNamara 2011).

Numerous sources of information have exposed the importance of dreaming and REM sleep with respect to the development and maturity of the body and mind of an individual. According to the analysis of one of the studies, dreaming and REM sleep plays a vital role in the development of the brain and intellect, as the dreams are the platform that facilitates the brain with a source of influential and prevailing stimulation. Additionally, the REM sleep and dreams also smooth the progress of the growth and progression of the nervous system (Serendip 2008).

Moreover, scientists have proved that a connection between dreaming or REM sleep and learning exists because new information captured by an individual is a part of development that is enhanced and matured when a person dreams, as his brains are more active at that time. Pertaining to this assumption, the scientists have gained the insight that REM sleep and dreaming consolidates the memory as well as support in the learning process (Serendip 2008).

Indeed, the dream not only matures the memory consolidation and learning process but the person's ability of recall and remember the information is also facilitated to a great deal. This is typically because learning requires high concentration level that can only be attained through boosted REM sleep. The fact that progress and growth in the learning process is the consequence of escalated REM sleep and dreaming has been exposed from a number of evidences through the research studies. However, it is also crucial to note that REM sleep deprivation acutely damage and impair the ability to learn (Serendip 2008).

Dream sleep or REM sleep has been regarded as a magnificent mechanism by scores of researchers and scientists. According to some schools of thoughts REM sleep and dreaming to an appropriate amount helps in achieving the emotional repairs for an individual, however, too much of REM sleep and dream can prove to exhibit results in an unconstructive manner. Research studies have indicated that in the normal circumstances, people usually forget most of the dreams that they have seen during the REM sleep, because…

Sources used in this document:
References

Coon, D & Mitterer, J.O. (2008). Introduction to Psychology: Gateways to Mind and Behavior, 12th Edition, Cengage Learning, Canada.

Harvard Health Publications (2012). 'Understanding Sleep: Body Clock and Sleep Cycles', HELPGUIDE.ORG -- A Trusted Non-Profit Resource, Viewed September 24, 2012: http://www.helpguide.org/harvard/sleep_cycles_body_clock.htm

Harvard Medical School (2007). 'Sleep, Learning, and Memory', Healthy Sleep, Viewed September 24, 2012: http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/benefits-of-sleep/learning-memory

Hobson, A.J. (2004). Dreaming: An Introduction to the Science of Sleep, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, Great Britain.
Lippman, A. (2003). 'The Roles of NREM and REM Sleep On Memory Consolidation', Serendip Studio, Viewed September 24, 2012: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1690
McNamara, P. (2011). 'The impact of dreams on your social life', Psychology Today, Viewed September 24, 2012: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dream-catcher/201105/the-impact-dreams-your-social-life
Serendip (2008). 'The Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Brain and Behavior', Serendip Studio, Viewed September 24, 2012: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro03/web2/alippman.html
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Dreams, Reality, and the Future of Environmental
Words: 779 Length: 3 Document Type: Essay

Dreams, Reality, and the Future of Environmental Psychology by Richard Sommer. Origins of a New Field Need to understand social and historical context of the discipline started in U.S. And Canada and later diffused; related to Roger Barker on psychological ecology and Daniel Berlyne on environmental aesthetics ref to charisma (extraordinary power) Intellectual climate of the 1960s challenging traditional assumptions of allocation of power, resources, nature of society behavioral science had not yet predicted Human Rights

Dreams, Though Abstract in Nature And, Often,
Words: 671 Length: 2 Document Type: Term Paper

Dreams, though abstract in nature and, often, in content, seem to have very concrete and applicable roles for their possessors. Whether serving as a driving force behind the achievement of one's goals or simply conjuring vague and forgotten traces of the subconscious, a dream's idealized purpose is hazy at best. But it is this condition that lends dreams their tremendous versatility. Particularly, dreams may have the capacity, due to their

Dreams Have Been an Area
Words: 1242 Length: 4 Document Type: Term Paper

We experience a world roughly parallel to our usual visual-spatial one, though as noted, with some broader or wilder elements. Furthermore, dreaming avoids the most "tightly woven," "over learned" portions of the nets. His research further shows that we dream very little of well-learned familiar tasks such as reading, typing, writing, or calculating, even when we spend hours per day of our waking lives on these tasks. (Hartmann 6) Dreams contextualize

Dream Community Unlike the Popular
Words: 1330 Length: 4 Document Type: Term Paper

Older people could receive tax incentives to act as teachers to students in areas of expertise, or simply to help out as coaches or staff. Ideally, private educational institutions would be few, to ensure a lack of a drain of community resources from the public schools, although private schools could supplement student education for students with special needs that could not be met by the public system. Transportation Unless it was

Butterfly Dream
Words: 1582 Length: 5 Document Type: Term Paper

Lao Tzu Psychology Dreaming: Exploring Philosophy through Psychology What are we, really? Are we the human, or are we the butterfly? Our cognitive reasoning is definitely limited to our mere mortal senses, and so this question is actually quite difficult -- if not impossible -- to ask. One thing that is certain, the brain has a degree of complexity that is perplexing. According to the philosophy of Lao Tzu, the father of

Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver Theme the Importance of Ecology...
Words: 2408 Length: 8 Document Type: Term Paper

Animal Dreams: Real Life Reflections of the Effects of Pollution on the World's Fertility Continued inadequate attention to the world's rivers, lakes and streams will ultimately result to mankind's demise. To ensure the productivity and viability the earth in the future, mankind must start working together to protect the physical environment and ecological processes or face destruction. Government legislation and community action related to this issue up until this point in

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now