CS - Sleep and Dream Theories Lesson

Psych_Lesson_TopBanner.png 

Sleep and Dream Theories

Are you awake and alert right now? Do you ever fall asleep when you don't mean to fall asleep? Did you get enough sleep last night?Did you get enough sleep last night? Are you awake and alert right now? Do you ever fall asleep when you don't mean to fall asleep?

Sleep is vital for several reasons. While researchers have uncovered many other reasons, some important functions of sleep include:

  1. It gives your brain an opportunity to strengthen memories.
  2. It gives your brain an opportunity to remove waste products that are created when cells fire.
  3. It gives your muscles a chance to repair themselves and/or grow.

Looking at this list may help you understand why babies and small children need a lot more sleep than older people. Children's bodies are growing rapidly and their brains are learning a great deal of new information, leading them to need a lot of sleep.    

So what happens when we don't get enough sleep?

Check out the activity below to learn more about the effects of sleep deprivation:

Most of the consequences in the list above seem to stem from a lack of deep sleep (nREM-3), but the body also needs dream sleep (REM). In experiments where researchers kept animals or humans from going into REM sleep, subjects experienced REM Rebound; as soon as they were able to get to REM sleep, they would stay in REM longer, spending less time in other stages.

Researchers do not agree on the purpose of dreams, but they know dreaming is significant because of REM Rebound.

Dream Theories

  1. Never Stop DreamingFreud's wish fulfillment: Freud was a pioneer in psychology with his ideas about the unconscious mind, so of course his dream theory focuses on the unconscious mind. He said that the unconscious mind is filled with desires that make the conscious mind uncomfortable, and dreams are the best way for the unconscious mind to express itself. In other words, whatever you dream about is something you secretly want to happen, but are uncomfortable with thinking about consciously. Freud believed there were two parts to every dream:
      1. The manifest content is the obvious storyline of your dream (you fell from a high place or became president)
      2. The latent content is the hidden meaning of your dream (you're afraid of failure or obsessed with attention)
  2. Information processing theory: This theory says that dreams help people deal with memories, reviewing them and storing them so they're easier to access in the future. People who are deprived of REM sleep get lower scores on memory tests than people who got normal amounts of REM sleep.
  3. Activation synthesis hypothesis: This theory says that dreams are the brain's attempt to create a sensible storyline out of random electrical firing during sleep. Brain scans show that various brain parts (for example, the visual cortex and the limbic system) are very active during REM sleep.

Most psychologists today do not believe in Freud's theory, but it's still important in the history of psychology.

PSYCH_LessonBottomBanner.png 

IMAGES CREATED BY GAVS OR OPENSOURCE