Why We Dream
...of the human being, how we move, how we talk, how we act, and for the most part these physiological behaviors have been explained, or at least understood on some level. However, when it comes to topics pertaining to the mind, or psychological matters, scholars and researchers have been confused about certain areas for a long time. Many things go on inside of the mind which do not make sense and do not have any tangible explanation. One of the most intriguing and inexplicable sections of psychology is that of dreaming, both why and how we do it. Everybody has dreams at one point or another, and in fact, though they are hard to remember, most people have at least one dream every night. There are many theories on why people dream, such as utilizing sleep as a time to reorganize one’s daily thoughts. The sleep cycle has been studied and while the brain’s waves travel through many different stages, when exactly do dreams occur during a good night’s sleep? Also, why do people have certain types of dreams, such as nightmares and night terrors? Finally what does the content of dreams mean and the psychology behind them? This paper will address all of the topics mentioned here in detail and give an educated hypothesis as to why and when people dream, and then why people have the certain types of dreams that they have.
Before dreams begin the body starts the sleep cycle. There are 4 stages in the sleep cycle. Before the cycle starts the alpha stage is in progress. In the beta stage the brain waves are rapid and fast. After the beta stage the first stage of the sleep cycle is
Dreaming 3
called the alpha stage. In this stage the brain starts to slowly drift into a relaxed state which turns your rapid brain waves into relaxed brain waves. This stage lasts about ten minutes and sets up the first REM period of sleep (McMahon and Romano, 2000, p.166)....
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