I believe That one day the human race will manage to make some dreams come to reality .

May be in our far future ,thousands years from now. When our technology MRI,CT and digital camera will be so advance to a level that we can capture the pictures of our dreams and thoughts , and make an imagery of it . If we can do that , then we can apply it to a the 3D PRINTER technology and make these images come to reality , and bring our dreams to reality.So we can bring an objects back from our dreams. Just like The Creator himself who can think and imagine anything and he can make it happen before our eyes. With virtual reality and advance 3d prints we will begin to feel 100% real, and we will be able to upload our mind and/or consciousness ,our dreams and thoughts .We can bring them back to a solid material ,creates our own games and our own body parts.

We can create the impossible as human. We dont need to go to Mars or other planets to find our dreams, but we as human can achieve that with smart thinking and hard work.

The digital technology will be so advance and we will have a 3D printers hooked to imaging machines that take pictures of our dreams, and may be to our soul .

We can capture the makeup of the soul, the pure light inside each of us and try to copy the soul itself. Scientists already capturing the smallest molecular particles ,and make 3d print of them to use in medicine. It is a dream now and it sound like impossible.

Imagine the cave men sitting and eating and you tell them one day you will discover the TV, Fax machines, Phones, Cars, Planes etc and explain to them how it works and what we can do, May be one will find you amusing, but the majority will hit you on the head ,laugh at you and call you the dream boy.But those dreams are facts now ,and part of our daily life.

Dreams mainly occur in the rapid-eye movement (REM) stage of sleep—when brain activity is high and resembles that of being awake. REM sleep is revealed by continuous movements of the eyes during sleep. At times, dreams may occur during other stages of sleep.

“Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.” – Henry David Thoreau

Dreams have fascinated philosophers for thousands of years, but only recently have dreams been subjected to empirical research and concentrated scientific study. Chances are that you’ve often found yourself puzzling over the mysterious content of a dream, or perhaps you’ve wondered why you dream at all.

A dream can include any of the images, thoughts and emotions that are experienced during sleep. Dreams can be extraordinarily vivid or very vague; filled with joyful emotions or frightening imagery; focused and understandable or unclear and confusing.

Dreams are a universal human experience that can be described as a state of consciousness characterized by sensory, cognitive and emotional occurrences during sleep.27 The dreamer has reduced control over the content, visual images and activation of the memory.

While many theories have been proposed, no single consensus has emerged. Considering the enormous amount of time we spend in a dreaming state, the fact that researchers do not yet understand the purpose of dreams may seem baffling. However, it is important to consider that science is still unraveling the exact purpose and function of sleep itself.

Some researchers suggest that dreams serve no real purpose, while others believe that dreaming is essential to mental, emotional and physical well-being. Ernest Hoffman, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Newton Wellesley Hospital in Boston, Mass., suggests that “…a possible (though certainly.

Phases of sleep

There are five phases of sleep in a sleep cycle:

1. Stage 1 – light sleep, eyes move slowly, and muscle activity slows. This stage forms 4-5% of total sleep
2. Stage 2 – eye movement stops and brain waves (fluctuations of electrical activity that can be measured by electrodes) become slower, with occasional bursts of rapid waves called sleep spindles. This stage forms 45-55% of total sleep
3. Stage 3 – extremely slow brain waves called delta waves begin to appear, interspersed with smaller, faster waves. 4-6% of total sleep
4. Stage 4 – the brain produces delta waves almost exclusively. It is very difficult to wake someone during stages 3 and 4, which together are called “deep sleep.” There is no eye movement or muscle activity. People awakened while in deep sleep do not adjust immediately and often feel groggy and disoriented for several minutes after they wake up. This forms 12-15% of total sleep
5. Stage 5 – REM – breathing becomes more rapider, irregular and shallow, eyes jerk rapidly in various directions, and limb muscles become temporarily paralyzed. Heart rate increases, blood pressure  rises, and males develop penile erections. When people awaken during REM sleep, they often describe bizarre and illogical tales – dreams. Forms 20-25% of total sleep time.

Psychoanalytic Theory of Dreams

Consistent with the psychoanalytic perspective , Sigmund Freud’s theory of dreams suggested that dreams were a representation of unconscious desires, thoughts and motivations. According to Freud’s psychoanalytic view of personality, people are driven by aggressive and sexual instincts that are repressed  from conscious awareness . While these thoughts are not consciously expressed, Freud suggested that they find their way into our awareness via dreams.

In his famous book the interpretation of dreams , Freud wrote that dreams are “…disguised fulfillment of repressed wishes.” He also described two different components of dreams: manifest content and latent content. Manifest content is made up of the actual images, thoughts and content contained within the dream, while the latent content represents the hidden psychological meaning of the dream.

Freud’s theory contributed to the popularity of  dream interpretation, which remains popular today. However, research has failed to demonstrate that the manifest content disguises the real psychological significance of a dream.

Activation- Synthesis Model of Dreaming

The activation synthesis model of dreaming  was first proposed by J. Allan Hobson and Robert McClarley in 1977. According to this theory, circuits in the brain become activated during REM sleep, which causes areas of the limbic system  involved in emotions, sensations and memories, including the amygdala and hippocampus , to become active. The brain synthesizes and interprets this internal activity and attempts to find meaning in these signals, which results in dreaming. This model suggests that dreams are a subjective interpretation of signals generated by the brain during sleep.

While this theory suggests that dreams are the result of internally generated signals, hobson does not believe that dreams are meaningless. Instead, he suggests that dreaming is “…our most creative conscious state, one in which the chaotic, spontaneous recombination of cognitive elements produces novel configurations of information: new ideas. While many or even most of these ideas may be nonsensical, if even a few of its fanciful products are truly useful, our dream time will not have been wasted.”

Information-Processing Theories

One of the major theories to explain why we sleep  is that sleep allows us to consolidate and process all of the information that we have collected during the previous day. Some dream experts suggest that dreaming is simply a by-product or even an active part of this information-processing. As we deal with the multitude of information and memories from the daytime, our sleeping minds create images, impressions, and narratives to manage all of the activity going on inside our heads as we slumber.

• Another theory uses a computer metaphor to account for dreams. According to this theory, dreams serve to ‘clean up’ clutter from the mind, much like clean-up operations in a computer, refreshing the mind to prepare for the next day.
• Yet another model proposes that dreams function as a form of psychotherapy. In this theory, the dreamer is able to make connections between different thoughts and emotions in a safe environment .
• A contemporary model of dreaming combines some elements of various theories. The activation of the brain creates loose connections between thoughts and ideas, which are then guided by the emotions of the dreamer .

Authors have hypothesized that one cluster of typical dreams (object endangered, falling, being chased or pursued) is related to interpersonal conflicts; another cluster (flying, sexual experiences, finding money, eating delicious food) is associated with libidinal motivations; and a third group (being nude, failing an examination, arriving too late, losing teeth, being inappropriately dressed) is associated with superego concerns.

Musical dreams frequency is related to the age of beginning to learn music and not to how much music is listened to throughout the day.

This may suggest that the role of some cerebral structures, such as amygdala and hypothalamus, are involved in migraine mechanisms as well as in the biology of sleep and dreaming.

Pain

Although it has been shown that realistic, localized painful sensations can be experienced in dreams – either through direct incorporation or from memories of pain – the frequency of pain dreams in healthy subjects is low.

Twenty-eight non-ventilated burn victims were interviewed for five consecutive mornings during their first week of hospitalization. Results found:

• 39% of patients reported pain dreams.
• Of those experiencing pain dreams, 30% of their total dreams were pain related.
• Patients with pain dreams showed evidence of worse sleep, more nightmares, higher intake of anxiolytic medication, and higher scores on the Impact of Event Scale.
• Patients with pain dreams also had a tendency to report more intense pain during therapeutic procedures.

More than half of the sample did not report pain dreams, but these results could suggest that pain dreams occur at a greater frequency in suffering populations than in normal volunteers.

Self-awareness

Recent findings link front temporal gamma EEG activity to conscious awareness in dreams. The study found that current stimulation in the lower gamma band during REM sleep influences ongoing brain activity and induces self-reflective awareness in dreams. Researchers concluded that higher order consciousness is related to synchronous oscillations around 25 and 40 Hz.

Relationships

Recent research has demonstrated parallels between romantic attachment styles and general dream content.

Assessment results from 61 student participants in committed dating relationships of six months duration or longer revealed a significant association between relationship-specific attachment security and the degree to which dreams about romantic partners followed. The findings illuminate our understanding of mental representations with regards to specific attachment figures.

Flying

There has been an increase in the percentage of people who report flying in dreams from 1956 to 2000; investigators have proposed this increase may reflect the increasing amount of air travel.

Death

The dream content of psychiatric in patients who had been admitted because of suicidal attempts was compared with three inpatient control groups who had been admitted for:

• Depression and suicidal ideation without attempt
• Depression with no suicidal ideas.
• Commission of a violent act without suicide.

Results confirmed that both suicidal and violent patients have more death content and destructive violence in their dreams, but also that this was a function of the severity of depression and certain character traits such as impulsivity, rather than being specific to the behavior itself.

Children

A study investigating anxiety  dreams in 103 children aged 9-11 years observed:

Girls dream more often than boys about the loss of another person, of falling, of socially disturbing situations and small animals.

• Girls reported a higher frequency of anxiety dreams than boys, although they could not remember their dreams more often.
• Girls dreamt more often than boys about the loss of another person, of falling, of socially disturbing situations and small animals, of animals as aggressors, of family members (mainly siblings) and other female persons of known identity.

Pregnancy

During studies comparing the dreams of pregnant and non-pregnant women:

• Baby and child representations were less specific in the late third trimester than in the early third trimester and than in non-pregnant women.
• Pregnant groups also had more pregnancy, childbirth and fetus themes.
• Childbirth content was higher in late than in early third trimester.
• Pregnant groups had more morbid elements than the non-pregnant group.

Caregivers

Those that give care to family or patients often have dreams related to the person or care given. A study following the dreams of adults that worked for at least a year with patients at US hospice centers noted

• Patients were generally manifestly present in participants’ dreams, and dreams were typically realistic.
• In the dream, the dreamer typically interacted with the patient as a caretaker but was also typically frustrated by the inability to help as fully as desired.

Bereavement

It is widely believed that oppressive dreams are frequent in bereavement. A study analyzing dream quality, as well as the linking of oppressive dreams in bereavement, discovered:

• Oppressive dreams occurred at a significantly higher frequency in the first year of bereavement
• Oppressive dreams were significantly associated with anxiety and depressive symptoms.

Does everyone dream in color?

Researchers discovered in a study that about 80% of participants younger than 30 years old dreamed in color. At 60 years old, 20% said they dreamed in color. The number of people aged in their 20 s, 30 s and 40 s dreaming in color increased through 1993 to 2009. Researchers speculated that color television might play a role in the generational difference.

Mistakes/Misidentification

During neuroimaging studies looking at brain activity in REM sleep, scientists found that the distribution of brain activityduring REM sleep

 

 

 

 

might also be linked to specific dream features. Several bizarre features of normal dreams have similarities with well-known neuropsychological syndromes after brain damage, such as delusional misidentifications for faces and places.

Drug abusers

A study following the dream content of crack cocaine abusers in Trinidad and Tobago during abstinence detailed:

• 41 patients reported drug dreams during the first month, mainly of using the drug (89.1%).
• 28 had drug dreams at six months follow-up, mainly of using or refusing the drug (60.9%).

What do blind people dream about?

Studies have shown that blind participants have fewer visual dream impressions compared with sighted participants. Congenitally blind participants reported more auditory, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory dream components compared with sighted participants. Blind and sighted participants did not differ with respect to emotional and thematic dream content

Paraplegic and those unable to hear or speak

One study explored the dream diaries of 14 people with impairments; four were born with paraplegia and 10 were born deaf and unable to speak. When compared with 36 able-bodied individuals, findings showed that around 80% of the dream reports of the deaf participants gave no indication of their impairment.

Many spoke in their dreams, while others could hear and understand spoken language. The dream reports of the people born paralyzed revealed something similar; they often walked, ran or swam, none of which they had ever done in their waking lives.

There was no difference between the number of bodily movements in the dream reports of the people with paraplegia and those of the deaf and able-bodied subjects.

A second study found similar results. Researchers looked at the dream reports of 15 people who were either born with paraplegia or had it later in life due to a spinal-cord injury. Their reports revealed that 14 of the participants with paraplegia had dreams in which they were physically active, and they dreamed about walking just as often as the 15 able-bodied control participants.

Recent dream studies suggest that our brain has the genetically determined ability to generate experiences that mimic life, including fully functioning limbs and senses, and that people who are born deaf or paralyzed are likely tapping into these parts of the brain when they dream about things they cannot do while awake.

What are bad dreams and nightmares?

A nightmare is a distressing dream that usually forces at least partial awakening. The dreamer may feel any number of disturbing emotions in a nightmare, such as anger, guilt, sadness or depression, but the most common feelings are fear and anxiety.

Nightmares can cause distressing emotions and can be especially disturbing for children.

Bad dreams, or nightmares are common in both adults and children. They can be caused by:

• Stress, Fear, Trauma, Emotional issues, Medication or drug use, Illness.

How do you decide if a dream is considered to be a “bad dream” or a “nightmare”? The content of 9,796 dream reports was collected, which exposed:

253 nightmares – frequently contained physical aggression, situations that were more bizarre and more emotionally intense, containing more failures and unfortunate endings. 35% of nightmares contained primary emotions other than fear.

• 431 bad dreams – frequently contained interpersonal conflicts. 55% of bad dreams contained primary emotions other than fear.

In a study of 840 German athletes from various sports, discussing distressing dreams on the nights before an important competition or game:

• About 15% of the athletes stated that they experienced at least one distressing dream before an important competition or game during the preceding 12 months
• An almost equal number of athletes reported at least one distressing dream in their sports career
• In about 3% of the events, a distressing dream occurred
• Reported dream content referred mainly to athletic failure.

A survey examining the dreams, nightmares, and sleep patterns of 30 women who were dealing with relationship violence found:

• 50% of the sample experienced nightmares on a weekly basis
• Some of the dream images included drowning, being chased, being killed or killing others
• 56% experienced a recurring dream
• Most women had trouble falling asleep and, on average, slept for 6.1 hours per night.

A study of 190 normal school children aged 4 to 12 years reported the following forms of anxiety symptoms:

• Fears – 75.8%, Worries – 67.4% , Scary dreams – 80.5%.

Fears of scary dreams were common among children aged 4-6 years old, becoming even more prominent in 7- to 9-year-olds and then decreasing in frequency for 10- to 12-year-olds.

Findings from dream reports of 610 boys and girls recalling disturbing and normal dreams at both 13 and 16 years of age highlights how a prevalence of disturbing dreams is especially marked for adolescent girls. Frequent recall of disturbing dreams is associated with pathological symptoms of trait anxiety, even in girls as young as 13 years of age.

Conditions

Certain conditions appear to increase the frequency of nightmares in individuals such as:

• Migraine: recurrent dreams featuring complex visual imagery, often terrifying nightmares, can occur as migraine aura symptoms.The brain of migraineurs seems to dream with some peculiar features, all with a negative connotation, as fear and anguish.
• Sleep apnea: patients with sleep apnea have more emotionally negative dreams than sleepy snorers.
• Depression: frequent nightmares are associated with suicidal tendency in patients with major depression.

What are night terrors/sleep terrors?

Night terrors are very different from nightmares. The behavior of a child experiencing night terrors may feature:

• Screaming ,houting , Thrashing around, Panic, Jumping out of bed, Inability to recognize parents trying to comfort them.

Night terrors occur on waking abruptly from deep NREM sleep, whereas nightmares are thought to occur during REM sleep.

Most children will eventually grow out of night terrors. Studies of twin cohorts and families with sleep terror and sleepwalking suggest genetic involvement of parasomnias (a category of sleep disorders that involve abnormal movements, behaviors, emotions, perceptions, and dreams that occur while falling asleep, sleeping, between sleep stages, or during arousal from sleep).

Night terrors have also been linked to enlarged tonsils and adenoids.

A recurring dream is a type of dream that occurs on a regular basis when we sleep.

What are lucid dreams?

Lucid dreaming is a rare state of sleep in which the dreamer gains insight into their state of mind during dreaming; a dream in which the dreamer knows they are dreaming is deemed to be a lucid dream.

Lucid dreams usually occur while a person is in the middle of a regular dream and suddenly realizes that they are dreaming.

Research has shown that lucid dreaming is accompanied by an increased activation of parts of the brain that are normally suppressed during sleep.

A German study revealed significantly increased brain activity during lucid dreams. An EEG machine recorded frequencies in the 40 Hz (or GAMMA) range in lucid dreamers. This is far higher than the normal dream state (THETA range, or 4-7 Hz).

The researchers also saw heightened activity in the frontal and front lateral areas of the brain – the seat of linguistic thought as well as other higher mental functions linked to self-awareness. This supports the theory that lucid dreaming is a unique state of consciousness separate from any other mental state.

Using  drugs ;  Anesthetic

Dreams and hallucinations under sedation or anesthesia have been a well-known phenomena since the introduction of anesthesia. Sexual hallucinations may lead to allegations of sexual molestation or assault by medical doctors or professional nursing staff.Since the introduction of anesthesia, hallucinations and dreams that are blurred with reality have been frequently reported.

Propofol

There have been cases of Propofol -induced hallucinations and dreams in patients described as pleasant, with a frequent “sexual connotation,” uninhibited behavior or a verbal expression of patient’s intimate thoughts.

Ketamine

Thirty healthy volunteers completed questionnaires about retrospective home dream recall and were then given either Ketamine or placebo. The study found:

Ketamine resulted in significantly more dream unpleasantness relative to placebo.

The number of dreams reported over the three nights did not differ between the groups.

Alcohol

A study aiming to investigate sleep quality and the subjective dream experience in alcohol-dependent patients during withdrawal and abstinence compared with healthy controls found:

• Sleep quality was impaired in alcohol-dependent patients during detoxification, and the subjective dream experience was more negatively toned compared with healthy controls.
• Both sleep quality and dream experience improved slightly after four weeks of abstinence.
• Patients with alcohol dependency during withdrawal and abstinence dreamt significantly more often about alcohol.

Subjective sleep and dream quality is strongly impaired in patients with alcohol dependency.

Marijuana

Smoked marijuana and oral tetrahydro cannabinol (THC):

• Reduce REM sleep
• Increase stage 4 sleep
• Cause strange dreams among acute and subacute cannabis withdrawal
• Increase sleep onset latency, reduce slow-wave sleep, and a REM rebound can be observed.
• Conditions

Narcolepsy

Narcolepsy with cataplexy (NC) is a neurological disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness and an altered architecture of sleep.

Dream reports were analyzed in NC patients and control participants. While dream recall (about 85%) was comparable in NC patients and controls, first-REM dream reports were longer in NC patients.

Statistical analyses on the NC patients and their matched controls who reported dreams after both REM periods showed that dream experiences occurring in first-REM reports of NC patients were longer and had a more complex organization than those of controls.

These findings suggest that the cognitive processes underlying dream generation reach their optimal functioning earlier in the night in NC patients than in normal subjects.

Parkinson’s

The relationship between testosterone levels, violent dreams, and REM sleep behavior disorder  in 31 men with (PD) was examined; 12 with clinical RBD and 19 without.

• All PD patients with clinical RBD experienced violent dreams, but none of the 19 non-RBD patients reported violent dreams.
• While dream content appears to be more aggressive in PD patients with clinical RBD, the presence of violent dreams or clinical RBD is not associated with testosterone levels in men with PD.

Another study examined the dream characteristics of PD patients to determine whether dream content differed between patients with RBD and without RBD, men and women with RBD, and men and women with PD.

• RBD patients had a higher percentage of violent dreams compared to non-RBD patients.
• There were no significant sex differences in the dream content of RBD patients.
• Men with PD had more aggressive dreams compared to females with PD.
• Aggressive dream content was characteristic of RBD patients and sex differences exist in the dream content of the PD population.

Post-traumatic stress disorder

Disturbed sleep patterns, nightmares, and anxiety-filled dreams form a cluster of symptoms belonging to the DSM- IV diagnosis of ptsd

Researchers at the University of Toronto say a sleep disorder that causes people to act out their dreams is the best current predictor of brain diseases like Parkinson’s and many other forms of dementia.

Why are dreams difficult to remember? How do we remember dreams?

It is thought that five minutes after the end of a dream, we have forgotten 50% of its content, and 10 minutes later, we have forgotten 90%. Dream researchers estimate that approximately 95% of all dreams are forgotten entirely upon awakening.

There is something about the phenomenon of sleep that makes it difficult to remember what has occurred. Most dreams are forgotten unless they are written down.

Some people have no difficulty in remembering several dreams nightly, whereas others recall dreams only occasionally or not at all.

Some aspect of the phenomenon of sleep makes it difficult for dreamers to remember what has occurred, and most dreams are forgotten unless they are written down.

Sometimes a dream is suddenly remembered later in the day or on another day, suggesting that the memory is not totally lost but for some reason is very hard to retrieve.

Brain lesion and neuroimaging studies converge in indicating that the temporo-parieto-occipital junction and ventromesial prefrontal cortex play crucial roles in dream recall.

Surface EEG studies showed that sleep cortical oscillations associated with successful dream recall are the same as those involved in encoding and recall of episodic memories during wakefulness.

The patient suffered a lesion in a part of the brain known as the right inferior lingual gyrus (located in the visual cortex), which could suggest that dreams are generated in, or transmitted through, this particular area of the brain, associated with visual processing, emotion and visual memories.

Have a nice dream and Goodnight.

If you have a dream just email it to me and I will analyse it for you, based on Scientific facts, holy books, symbols, and key codes.

drsteveramsey@gmail.com

Steve Ramsey.,PhD.

Calgary,Alberta- Canada.