Many scientists used to think that dreams were just a byproduct of the brain’s nighttime regimen. However, new research has shown that dreaming for people not suffering from a sleep disorder serves several important functions, especially for our learning and memory.
Dreams help you remember
Plenty of research has shown that sleep helps you absorb new information, and there is some evidence suggesting that dreaming also strengthens memories. In a study published in Current Biology, researchers asked 99 people to play a virtual reality maze. The investigators tested the people’s memories by asking them to remember objects in the maze. Half of the participants then took a nap, and once they woke up, the scientists retested all of the people’s memories of the maze. The people in the napping group improved more on the test than those in the non-napping one. However, those who had dreams of the maze during the nap improved 10 times more than the other participants in the napping group.
Dreams may put you in a better mood
Dreams may be able to regulate one’s mood, according to a study published in Psychiatry Research. Scientists evaluated the moods of 60 people using a psychological questionnaire twice: before and after the people got a night’s sleep. The researchers also awakened the participants from time to time, asking them whether they had any dreams, and, if so, what those dreams were about. The investigators wanted to see whether sleep and dreams would affect the participants’ moods. They found that those people who had been in neutral moods at the start of the experiment did not experience significant changes in their disposition overnight.
However, the moods of those who had felt down before going to sleep did improve. Interestingly, along with this change, the people in the latter group also experienced a gradual reduction in the frequency of negative dreams from the beginning to the end of the night, suggesting that dreaming may actively moderate mood overnight.
Even nightmares have benefits
Nightmares occur most frequently in REM sleep, but unlike lucid dreams, these intense, often unwelcome imaginings happen with decreased prefrontal cortex activity, meaning there’s less emotional control and a more overwhelming sense of arousal. Researchers now believe that these experiences are the brain’s way of preparing us for when bad things happen, like an emotional “dress rehearsal.” It’s almost as though the mind is anticipating bad things happening, and then trying out solutions. Some experts believe that this is a defense mechanism rooted in our earliest days—if something bad happened once, there was a chance it could happen again. So having a recurring nightmare of that event could keep you on guard.
