The human brain is full of mysteries, and why we dream is a big one. Learn the leading theories about why we dream in this classic episode of BrainStuff.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Episode Transcript
Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
brain Stuff Lauren Vogel bum here with another classic for
you today. Dreams can be pleasant, or painful or downright perplexing.
My least favorite ones are the mundane ones where I
do dishes or fold laundry and then wake up and
it's not done. But why do we have dreams at all?
(00:24):
And what do they mean? Welcome to brain Stuff from
How Stuff Works, Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel bam here,
the human brain is a mysterious little ball of gray matter.
After all these years, researchers are still baffled by many
aspects of how and why it operates like it does.
Scientists have been performing sleep and dream studies for decades now,
(00:47):
and we still aren't a hundred percent sure about the
function of sleep or exactly how and why we dream.
We do know that our dream cycle is typically most
abundant and best remembered during the R E M stage
of sleep. It's also pretty commonly up did among the
scientific community that we all dream, though the frequency in
which dreams are remembered varies from person to person. The
question of whether dreams actually have a physiological, biological, or
(01:10):
psychological function has yet to be answered, but that hasn't
stopped scientists from researching and speculating. There are several theories
as to why we dream. One is that dreams work
hand in hand with sleep to help the brain sort
through everything it collects during the waking hours. Your brain
is met with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of
inputs every day. Some are minor sensory details, like the
(01:32):
color of a passing car, while others are far more complex,
like the big presentation you're putting together for your job
or class. During sleep, the brain works to plow through
all of this information to decide what to hang onto
and what to forget. Some researchers think that dreams play
a role in this process. It's not just a stab
in the dark. Though. There is some research to back
up the ideas that dreams are tied to how we
(01:53):
form memories. Studies indicate that as we're learning new things
in our waking hours, our dreams increase while we sleep.
Participants in a dream study who are taking a language
course showed more dream activity than those who were not.
In light of such studies, the idea that we use
our dreams to sort through and convert short term memories
into long term memories has gained some momentum in recent years.
(02:14):
Another theory is that dreams typically reflect our emotions during
the day. Our brains are working hard to make connections
to achieve certain functions. When posed with a tough math problem,
your brain is incredibly focused on that one thing, and
the brain doesn't only serve mental functions. If you're building
a bench, your brain is focused on making the right
connections to allow your hands to work in concert with
(02:35):
the saw in the wood to make an exact cut.
The same goes for simple tasks like hitting a nail
with a hammer. Have you ever lost focus and smashed
your finger because your mind was elsewhere. Some researchers have
proposed that while sleeping, everything slows down. We aren't required
to focus on anything during sleep, so our brains make
very loose connections. It's during sleep that the emotions of
(02:56):
the day battle it out in our dream cycle. If
something is weighing heavily on your mind during the day,
chances are you might dream about it, either specifically or
through some kind of imagery. For instance, if you're worried
about losing your job due to company downsizing. You may
dream that you're a shrunken person living in a world
of giants, or that you're wandering aimlessly through a great
desert Abyss. There's also a theory, definitely the least intriguing
(03:18):
of the bunch, that dreams don't really serve any function
at all, that they're just a pointless byproduct of the
brain firing wallaby slumber. We know that the rear portion
of our brain gets pretty active during r M sleep,
when most dreaming occurs. Some think that it's just the
brain winding down for the night, and that dreams are
random and meaningless firings that we don't have when we're
awake at the end of the day. As long as
(03:40):
the brain remains such a mystery, we probably won't be
able to pinpoint with absolute certainty exactly why we dream.
Today's episode was written by Charles W. Bryant, Yes Chuck
and produced by Tristan McNeil and Tyler Playing. Or more
on this and lots of other dreamy topics at how
stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I
(04:02):
Heart Radio. Or more podcasts in my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows,
BrainStuff News
Host
Lauren Vogelbaum
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.