What purpose do Dreams serve?

[krelnius]

I've heard a lot of opinions and some claims of facts about this and I've also heard a lot of data suggesting nobody has a friggin' clue. So, given that I am still not sure about the answer and have notived all the intelligence floating around here I figured it would be an interesting topic of discussion.

So, why do we dream?

 

[Dark Jaguar]

The explanation I once heard is that it is something akin to file defragmentation on a brainwide scale.

I simply heard it asserted as the current explanation with nothing akin to evidence or some sort of study indicating it though. At most it is just a hypothesis.

Imma check wikipedia for a sec on that...

 

[Cecil]

Short answer: we don't know. Several hypothesis I've heard before are:

- dreams are the brain's way of sorting through everything it encountered that day and deciding what to file in permanent memory.

- dreams are the brain cleaning itself out (?). Perhaps, organising memories, or defragmenting as Dark Jaguar put it.

On the other hand, keep in mind there may not necessarily even be a purpose to them. The brain can never shut off completely - when it sleeps it goes into a state of reduced activity. Perhaps dreams are just an epiphenomenon associated with this mental activity. Actually, I tend to the school of thought that ALL cognitive experiences are epiphenomena, but that's just me.

One thing we do know is that while people perform worse on cognitive tasks following a night of reduced sleep time, they perform less worse if the sleep they lost was of the REM stage. (cite)

After some googling, I found "THE CASE AGAINST MEMORY CONSOLIDATION IN REM SLEEP" which seems to argue against the memory hypothesis. It presents people who do not, for one reason or another, experience REM sleep yet exhibit normal behaviours.

Here's a Scientific American Q&A on it.

 

[Bronze Dog]

On the other hand, keep in mind there may not necessarily even be a purpose to them. The brain can never shut off completely - when it sleeps it goes into a state of reduced activity. Perhaps dreams are just the conscious experience that happens to be associated with this.

One hypothesis I faintly recall hearing: Dreams are a side-effect of all the stuff your brain does at night, with no purpose of their own.

 

[hammegk]

Or is that Reality?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Part of dreams might be random brain garbage, but part might be other modules of the brain trying to pattern match and make sense out of the garbage, as the brain is wont to do. Maybe that's why dreams make any sense at all.

~~ Paul

 

[aggle-rithm]

Part of dreams might be random brain garbage, but part might be other modules of the brain trying to pattern match and make sense out of the garbage, as the brain is wont to do. Maybe that's why dreams make any sense at all.

~~ Paul

During REM sleep, certain parts of the brain are deactivated while others become hyperactive. Dreams are weird because the cognitive parts go to sleep, while more primitive parts of the brain are ramped up.

This according to a recent book on sleep and dreaming -- can't remember the author or title right now.

 

[cyborg]

Dreams are weird because the cognitive parts go to sleep, while more primitive parts of the brain are ramped up.

That might explain why sometimes I'll try to think about something in a dream in a, "this is some question posited, now I will answer" way only to wake up and think, "that answer was crap, why would I think it?"

 

[Complexity]

I occasionally do some serious problem solving while asleep. By this I mean that I usually am thinking about one of my problems when I'm trying to go to sleep and I occasionally wake up having gotten past an obstacle - very occasionally with a big chunk done. I've learned that if I don't jot down my ideas quickly on waking I can utterly lose them.

I've no idea if this is related to dreaming.

 

[Bronze Dog]

Every once in a while, I get a solution to a problem in a dream. It's usually something so obvious I missed it while awake.

 

[ma1ic3]

I used to wake up quite regularly with answers to questions I had been pondering. Sometimes, even after a month of not thinking about it, I would wake up one morning with the answer. It never happens anymore.

 

[Cecil]

There is also the phenomenon of lucid dreaming. Lucid dreams, in brief, are dreams in which you come to the realization that you are dreaming. This often allows you to control not only your actions but the entire flow of the dream. I have these semi-regularly (perhaps once a month), and they are one of the most fascinating experiences I've had. Apparently it is possible to train oneself to have them, and some people are able to dream lucidly all the time (up to 3-4 times a night!)

I'm not sure what implication this has on the nature of dreams in general, but any theory of dreaming has to take into account the possibility of achieving conscious control. Of course, I can't rule out the fact that it might just be the illusion of conscious control, but the feeling is subjectively the same as the conscious control I have over my waking actions (with the added bonus of having control over everyone else's actions, too!)

I believe there have been several threads on this forum about this phenomenon. If you're interested further, here's a book on it. There's some woo about astral projection and the like in it, but there are also some well-founded ideas about how to induce lucidity, how to extend its duration, and what to do with it when you have it.

 

[Bronze Dog]

I was able to get some fairly routine recognition and occasional bits of control. The cue I used was looking at clocks and my watch (I looked at them while awake whenever something mildly weird happened). Since I stopped wearing my watch, I've lost it.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

There is also the phenomenon of lucid dreaming. Lucid dreams, in brief, are dreams in which you come to the realization that you are dreaming. This often allows you to control not only your actions but the entire flow of the dream. I have these semi-regularly (perhaps once a month), and they are one of the most fascinating experiences I've had. Apparently it is possible to train oneself to have them, and some people are able to dream lucidly all the time (up to 3-4 times a night!)

I'm not sure what implication this has on the nature of dreams in general, but any theory of dreaming has to take into account the possibility of achieving conscious control. Of course, I can't rule out the fact that it might just be the illusion of conscious control, but the feeling is subjectively the same as the conscious control I have over my waking actions (with the added bonus of having control over everyone else's actions, too!)

I believe there have been several threads on this forum about this phenomenon. If you're interested further, here's a book on it. There's some woo about astral projection and the like in it, but there are also some well-founded ideas about how to induce lucidity, how to extend its duration, and what to do with it when you have it.

I read wikipedia's entry on this. Fortunatly, the woo ideas were simply listed as such, in the most politically correct way possible ("some religious people suggest..."). Interesting excercises.

I myself have known about these sorts of dreams for years. I always wanted to actually get into that situation, but it's only happened once, and, ironically, it was not everything I had dreamed it would be.

I can only say I almost never remember any dreams I have. I can months, even years, without actually remembering a dream, but I sleep pretty well compaired to some I know. When I do remember them, for the most part it's nothing out of the ordinary, as far as dreams go.

The one dream I've had where I was actually aware was pretty unusual. It was before I saw the Matrix, but thinking back on it, it sort of felt like my own brain was trying to keep me from going down the rabbit hole or something. I was dreaming I was in school listening to some literature speech, when at a certain point I came to the realization that I was in the middle of summer vacation, and the more I thought about it the more I realized there was absolutely no way I could possibly be in school, and this had to be a dream. So, realizing it was a dream I immediatly stood up and made my announcement. I said something along the lines of realizing this is a dream, and I am in control now. I'm not sure what I was trying to turn it into, but my attempt failed. The room grew dark and everyone just started yelling at me telling me it was not a dream, but the fact that everyone stood up at once like in a dream, and the place actually getting dark, made me realize it further. Anyway, I forget a lot of the details from there, but I kept going into these odd scene changes into different scenarios where people treated it like real and for a while I kept realizing this was a scene change and I was still dreaming, until eventually I sort of forgot and had some sort of beach dream and then I woke up. The odd thing is I remember more details from the start of the dream than the end. It just felt like my own mind had an agenda to keep itself from realizing it was dreaming. Also, the whole "if you realize you are dreaming you gain instant control" doesn't seem entirely accurate, at least for that dream. I suspect it takes a lot of training at least, because I certainly wasn't in control.

 

[krelnius]

hmmm

I myself have to agree with the idea that it is only the illusion of control as total control would allow for a complete 8 or atleast 6 to 4 hours of dream control in the average 8 hours or sleep a night wouldnt it? I mean, does anyone ever recall a 4 hour chunk of dreaming? All mine seem very broken and in very VERY short chunks at best.

Aside from that, I often have nightmares. If dreaming is the brain sorting what to keep and what not to keep then where did a a big purple ogre with a butcher knife chasing me through a Counter Strike map (de_dust2 to be specific) come from? I certainly don't recall that or anything like it. While it does sound somewhat like a combine effort of memories and somewhat possible then to be a storage process passing through multiple memories at once, I've also had dreams that I could not link back to ANY apparent waking memories at all.

Also, I've read that the average person has multiple dreams EVERY night that they actually get considerable amounts of sleep. But I question this theory as well because I gotta wonder who claimed to be able to tell that it wasnt just one continual dream that they could not recall parts of and thus concluded it was multiple dreams simply because they couldnt remember the gaps?

Also, I can't get over the fact that many nightmares have woken me up, sometimes I've also immediately continued an action from a dream into the waking world such as running. I wake up throwing my legs outward and raising my arms. This has happend on more than one occasion. If the brain can turn my dream self that is running into signals telling my ACTUAL parts to move without me consciously willing it to do so...perhaps inducing dreams without actually knowing your dreaming could be of use in unlocking part of the subconscious? I mean, since in the dream I am running but not moving, then when the dream ends my brain tells my physical self to continue the messages without actually getting my "permission" then perhaps using "dream instruction" can help use the parts of the brain we don't fully control...ya know...that small 90+ percent were just letting sleep over for a while.

Also, I can't help but recall my school years of listening to the radio to help me get to sleep. Living in the country silence was unbearable to me so I just let my favorite station play at night and thought nothing of it. But, I only did this at night because I didnt get a car until I was much older and so I really only heard the radio right before falling asleep and right after waking up which was when I shut it off and yet then randomly during the day I would find myself attaching peoples words and phrases to songs and lyrics without knowing where I was getting them from. I even often had dreams where the music was playing IN THE DREAM and the music was the same genre of the station I listened to at night. Somehow I was just memorizing this stuff while I slept. I've heard of this concept before and it makes me think that if the brain can not only recieve data while sleeping then maybe it can or even is sending data out. Also, if the data in the environment around the person can influence their dreams and the brain can use ones subconscious effectively during sleep then perhaps this is the reason many awake to answers to hard problems! Perhaps the brain simply solves them if they have been thought about enough in your waking hours.

I dunno about you guys but I think I'm gonna go to bed tonight repeating "How do I win 1 million dollars? How do I win 1 million dollars?"
Afterall, its worth a shot since I technically don't do anything else while I'm sleeping, or atleast nothing I'm aware of anyway. Darn lazy brain.

 

[Bullet]

IIRC Paul McCartney says that the song "Yesterday" came to him in a dream. Maybe he was trying to compete with John's Flaming Pie "episode"

 

[Bronze Dog]

If dreaming is the brain sorting what to keep and what not to keep then where did a a big purple ogre with a butcher knife chasing me through a Counter Strike map (de_dust2 to be specific) come from?

Uh, sorry about that. That was probably me... Though I don't recall the chasing or the butcher knife. Never played Counter Strike.

 

[toddjh]

During REM sleep, certain parts of the brain are deactivated while others become hyperactive. Dreams are weird because the cognitive parts go to sleep, while more primitive parts of the brain are ramped up.

Carl Sagan used this fact to speculate that the strange, nonsensical feeling of things in our dreams is how other animals feel all the time. Creepy!

 

[Wowbagger]

My opinion. This is sort-of based on some stuff I read a long time ago. Unfortunately, I can't remember where. So, just pretend I'm making this stuff up as I go along (Half of it probably could be stuff I just made up, anyway. My mind is fuzzy on the original details, as well.)

Dreams are an accidental occurrence, the result of how our brains and consciousness developed. They did not arise to serve a purpose of their own. But, over time, evolution has managed to glue some usefulness onto them, anyway: As some have pointed out, dreams are sometimes effective tools for solving problems, for example.

Unless you believe you are granted a "god-given soul" (*snark*! Yeah, right), you will eventually realize that human consciousness is not such a perfect thing. Just like our eyes are subject to trickery in optical illusions, our consciousness is subject to quirks in its own existence.

In principal, human evolution in the far distant future could allow our consciousness to behave more reliably, and dreams might go extinct. This is very unlikely to happen, but in principal it could.

I'm sorry I do not have evidence to back this up. I know everyone here is a stickler for evidence. So, you can feel free to disagree with me all you want, and even dismiss it as "woo" if you wish. I promise not to argue with you too harshly.

If anyone has scientific evidence to support or falsify these ideas, I'd love to hear it.

 

[Wowbagger]

(on a side note, I just realized my signature is perfect for this thread!)