• Question: Why do we dream?

    Asked by alanah to Cathal, Ciara, Emma, Michael, Sive on 14 Nov 2013. This question was also asked by shaunaf.
    • Photo: Emma Cahill

      Emma Cahill answered on 14 Nov 2013:

      Hi again Alanah,
      This is a very interesting question, we have recently got some new evidence that we might dream because different parts of our brain get activated accidently while the other pathways are actually storing away our memories of what happend that day. When mice were disturbed from sleeping they perform much worse on task they had learned the day before. So sleep is time for the brain to encode all our experiences. Brain circuits are sort of electrical and it’s thought that perhaps some overlapping parts kind of cause spill over activation while this is going on.. but these ideas still need more proof.

    • Photo: Sive Finlay

      Sive Finlay answered on 15 Nov 2013:

      Great question Alanah and cool answer Emma.
      I always wonder how animals or babies dream without language. When I dream I usually remember seeing various images but that goes hand in hand with verbal descriptions of the images or the emotions that I felt. I guess animals and babies dream in pictures and maybe sensations or smells but can they remember their dreams when they can’t describe them?

    • Photo: Michael Nolan

      Michael Nolan answered on 20 Nov 2013:

      I often wondered about the babies dreaming bit – how do they dream and look at the dream without language. Are babies born with the ability to work with images and this is somehow hardwired from the start? If a baby is not dreaming, what is happening during sleep, since we dream through the night and I know I dream when I take my naps (at my age, regular naps are required 🙂

      For me dreams are simply the brain working away, perhaps processing something from earlier in the day or week and it gets played out, most likely at random.

      Read nothing into this rubbish of dreams having meaning or a predictive power, that’s bunk

      In another take, we dream because this gives us something to work towards. I dreamt for years to be able to lead and direct my own scientific activities and I am there now. Hard work, but we got there.

      M

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