Some experts use good scents during sleep and were found to be effective to induce a good dream.  There is actually a related saying in a National Geographic Kids magazine that mentions smelling good scents during sleep might lead to “happy” dreams. This is found to be effective because just like soft music, it makes the person calm resulting to good dream. It is always said that having bad dreams is a result of tired body and mind which is sometimes expressed in dreams.

The use of dreaming device is also recommended by other experts. An example of such equipment includes Nova Dreamer which is worn during sleep producing blinking lights that the person sees in his sleep.   Another is the vibrating alarm with similar function. However, before using one of them, it is important to consider if they are worth their price and usage.

How to induce a good dream all depends on what strategy suits you. Try several techniques but stick to one.

Dreams are the purest form of art. Dreaming is an expression of our subconscious mind free from social constraint or censor. These elaborate and often surreal nocturnal constructs of our mind, which can seem as real as any event in conscious reality, are generated solely for an audience of one, seeking neither acclaim or monetary reward. Therefore, the most legitimate artistic pursuit a human can take part in is dreaming.

Just something to think about tonight as you doze off. 

every time when just started dreaming

It had to be some bad dreams…

maybe he was drowning in an ice creams

I don´t know what it might be…

so Im just kidding..you know me

His mother was so kind…

but when he woke up it was her who he couldn´t find

Yea I know it´s a sad story…

but I hope it´ll have a happy end, so don ´t worry

But who it was that he could find?…

no one… this poor child was blind

Now it´s sadly what you think…

ohh no it´s nothing … compairing to what is coming

Just think about the beginning…

when that kid was screaming

Maybe it was happines…

because he was seeing through the dreaming

The End

We all grow with great ideas and dreams. Each of us wants to be something, to make a name, to succeed in a career, to stand out in his or her unique nature. You might have noticed that those dreams fade away, they die slowly, because many things come in the way and you might have stood in the way also. Following our dreams is never easy especially when the path to those dreams involves others. You find yourself in the constant struggle between following your deep-most desires and what society wants from you. You find yourself going through periods of inner turmoil because you can’t reconcile the concepts of who you are and what society wants you to be.

Truth is, you can never be happy without grasping unto that thing that really defines and makes you feel complete. You can choose to follow your path, however difficult it may be. It is your path, the path that opens you to life. It happens that the thought of it frightens and scares you. You may be feeling like you would have to stand against the entire world. The choice to follow this path can be cause of a lot of suffering. It can also cause you great losses, like friends who feel abandoned because you are following a star that leads you to where you were meant to be. But mind you, following your path also means embracing solitude. I am not talking about “aloneness”, not loneliness…. I am talking about the creative, somewhat painful solitude of listening to calls that only you can understand, of knowing that no one can interpret the dream you are about to follow but you, the feeling that you will walk that path alone. And if you find someone who understands you, you should welcome him or her with delight. It is a grace that is hard to find.

If you have a dream, it is now you should stand up for you. Do not push for tomorrow the journey you can start today. It will never start because tomorrow doesn’t exist, and when it does, it comes with new colors and new beckons. Do not regret the things you missed yesterday, they are no longer yours, they belong to the realm of forgetfulness. Your dream… that which you have beheld at night, you should dream it now with eyes awake. You should believe in your dream so much as to take up arms for it. You should believe in yourself so much as to take off the veil that society casts over you and affirm your personality. Great things never come easily. They come only to the brave of heart and that a thing is hard to get is the more reason to fight for you. As you fight for your dream, you grow inside and a beautiful personality shapes within you.

According to a study based on 5,000 respondents Britons.

Despite the results, experts argue that this does not mean that men are not happy in your current relationship. The next interesting fact is that the question “What dream”, 35 percent of the representatives of the males responded that they dream about the colleagues office.

For women, things were very different. It turns out that one on third of them dream her ex – friend. Very often it happened in a dream to them and apparently their parents or children. Moreover, a major role in their dreams played by their girlfriends.

30 percent of women surveyed said they dream of people who have never met, and 40 percent dream something that they thought the day.

Scientists explain that the stress of the crisis has also affected the sleep of the people. About 30 percent had more difficulties while sleeping, which was directly related to their work load and concerns do not remain without one.

10 Years ago .I participated in a triathlon. I kept thinking about it all the time ,whet er I could do it or not, and then  I decided ,to do it. No ctually what made the turning point for me, was I saw a Nike Add.

Just do it.And that line has sort of helped me a lot over the years, If I worry about something ,I think of the worst scenario, and the best scenario. And I usually end up doing it.

 And for years now I have been thinking about I would like to write a childrens book. And now I have come to the conclusion, that I should just do it, Because no one does it for me since it is my dream.

They way I am going to go go about it -is I am going to write a plan down in the beginning of the years, how to approach it month by month. So I do not have to overlook everything, at one go .

 So dear people- happy new year -keep dreaming wishes can come through – we just have to belive in the -and just do it.

The first step to using hypnosis in lucid dreaming or “dream control” begins with remembering your dreams. A key point to consider is that everybody dreams. You may not remember your dreams when you wake but in an 8 hour night of sleeping you usually have five or more dreams.

Before retiring at night take several deep breaths. Close your eyes and relax each muscle group in turn. Beginner with your feet. Tense them and hold for a few seconds then release the tension and relax. Move up your body to your head until you have relaxed your entire body. Imagine that you are descending a long flight of stairs with ten steps. Breath with each step you take and repeat the word “relax”. Once at the bottom imagine that you are in a tranquil setting and rest there awhile.

Now mentally tell yourself that when you awaken you will be fresh, rested, full of energy and will remember your last dream in vivid detail.

Have a pen and small book beside your bed and upon awakening immediately ask yourself, what did I dream last night? Focus on taking deep breaths. Then write down in your dream in as much detail as you can recall. This is an important step so don’t overlook it!

After several days of this practise look over your written dream accounts and look for recurring themes. I always have something to drink or some sort of drinking liquid in mine. Your “dream sign” may be different.

Now when retiring the next night go through your relaxation exercise and tell yourself that you will become aware that you are dreaming when you encounter your dream sign. Tell yourself that it is a sign that you should awaken in your dream.

Do this for several nights and you will experience a lucid dream. Remember to record your dream just after waking. Studies have shown that many people have lucid dreams then forget that they had them a short time after waking. Keeping a journal of your dream experiences keeps them fresh in your mind and trains your brain to remember them.

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t lucid dream at the start. This is a new skill that must be learned. If you persevere you will achieve results. Should you wish to accelerate your results you may wish to read the review of the lucid dreaming kit on the site below.

Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.[1] The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, philosophical intrigue and religious interest throughout recorded history. The scientific study of dreams is called oneirology. Science has proven to an extent that all mammals dream. The scientific approach to dreams has been conducted through the discovery of REM sleep.

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. However, these dreams tend to be much less vivid or memorable. Dreams can last for a few seconds, or as long as twenty minutes. A person is more likely to remember the dream if he or she is awakened during the REM phase.

Dreams are a connection to the human subconscious. They can range from normal and ordinary to the overly surrealand bizarre. Dreams can at times make a creative thought occur to the person or give a sense of inspiration. Dream imagery is often absurd and unrealistic, and the events in dreams are generally outside the control of the dreamer, with the exception of lucid dreaming. Dreamers are usually not self-aware in their dreams; thus the dreams seem as reality. Dreams can have varying natures, such as frightening, exciting, magical, melancholic, adventurous, or sexual.[2]

The opinions about the meaning of dreams has varied and shifted through time and culture. Dream interpretations date back to 5000-4000 BC, where they were documented on clay tablets. The earliest recorded dreams were acquired from materials dating back approximately 5000 years, in Mesopotamia.[3] In some of the earliest societies, the dream world was regarded as an extension of reality. In the Greek and Roman periods, dreams were seen through a religious lens. The people believed that they were direct messages from the gods or from the dead. The people of that time relied on their dreams for solutions on what to do, or what course of action to take. They also believed dreams forewarned and predicted the future. Throughout history, people have sought meaning in dreams or divination through dreams.[4] Dreams have also been described physiologically as a response to neural processes during sleep; psychologically as reflections of the subconscious; and spiritually as messages from the Soul, from a god or from the deceased, or as predictions of the future. Some cultures practice dream incubation with the intention of cultivating dreams that are prophetic or contain messages from the divine. Some of these interpretations remain today embedded in the minds of individuals. The randomness or hidden meaning of dreams remains disputable.

The most prolific dream theories and interpretations were developed by Sigmund Freud, the Austrian neurologist who developed the discipline of psychoanalysis. Freud explained dreams where manifestations of our most deepest desires and anxieties. During sleep, dreams would manifest childhood repressed memories and obsessions. In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud developed a psychological technique to interpret dreams and devised a series of guidelines to understand the symbols and motifs that appear in our dreams.

Ancient history

The Sumerians in Mesopotamia left evidence of dreams dating back to 3100 BC. According to these early recorded stories, gods and kings, like the 7th century BC scholar-kingAssurbanipal, paid close attention to dreams. In his archive of clay tablets, some amounts of the story of the legendary king Gilgamesh were found. In this epic poem—one of the earliest known stories—Gilgamesh reported his recurring dreams to his goddess-mother Ninsun, who made the first known recorded dream interpretation.[5]

Gilgamesh’s dreams were thought of as a prophecy, where he used to control the actions in the waking world. These philosophies recorded in the Gilgamesh epic gave a valuable source of information about ancient dream beliefs. The Mesopotamians believed that the soul, or some part of it, moves out from the body of the sleeping person and actually visits the places and persons the dreamer sees in his sleep. Sometimes the god of dreams is said to carry the dreamer.[6]

Babylonians divided dreams into “good,” which were sent by the gods, and “bad,” sent by demons. In Assyria, people believed that their dreams were omens. One of the earliest recorded dreams was found written on a clay tablet in Nineveh. This dream dated back to the reign of King Ashurbanipal (669-626 BC). The tablet concluded that if a man flies repeatedly in his dreams, then all that he owns will be lost. Assyrians believed that dreams involving sexual content or adultery were thought of as diseases caused by evil demons rising from the under worlds to attack people.[7]

In ancient Egypt, people believed gods showed themselves in dreams. They believed that dreams were caused by real things that were beyond interpretation or control by the conscious mind. As back as 2000 BC, the Egyptians wrote down their dreams on papyrus. People with vivid and significant dreams were thought blessed and were considered special. Ancient Egyptians distinguished three main types of dreams: those in which the gods demanded some devotional act, those that contained warnings or revelations, and those that came about through ritual.[8]

Ancient Egyptians believed that dreams were like oracles, bringing messages from the gods. They thought that the best way to receive divine revelation was through dreaming and thus they would induce (or “incubate”) dreams. Egyptians would travel to a sanctuary or shrine, such as the famous temple at Memphis, Egypt, to lie down on special “dream beds” in hope of receiving advice, comfort, or healing from the gods.[9]

Jacob’s dream of a ladder of angels, c. 1690, by Michael Willmann

The ancient Hebrews connected their dreams heavily with their religion, though the Hebrews were monotheistic and believed that dreams were the voice of one god alone. Hebrews also differentiated between good dreams (from God) and bad dreams (from evil spirits). The Hebrews, like many other ancient cultures, incubated dreams in order to receive divine revelation. For example, the Hebrew prophet Samuel, would “lie down and sleep in the temple at Shiloh before the Ark and receive the word of the Lord.”

Christians mostly shared their beliefs with the Hebrews and thought that dreams were of the supernatural element because theOld Testament had frequent stories of dreams with divine inspiration. The most famous of these dream stories was Jacob’s dream that stretched from Earth to Heaven. Many Christian men preached that God talked to his people through their dreams.

Dreaming of the Tiger Spring (虎跑夢泉)

In Chinese history, people wrote of two vital aspects of the soul of which one is freed from the body during slumber to journey a dream realm, while the other remained in the body. Although, this belief and dream interpretation was questioned since early time, such as by the philosopher Wang Chong (27-97).[10] The Indian text Upanishads, written between 900 and 500 BC, emphasize two meanings on dreams. The first says that dreams are merely expressions of inner desires. The second is the belief of the soul leaving the body and being guided until awakened.

The Greeks shared their beliefs with the Egyptians on how to interpret good and bad dreams, and the idea of incubating dreams.Greek legend states that the god Hypnos made the people sleep by touching them with his magic wand or by fanning them with his wings. Morpheus also sent warnings and prophecies to those who slept at shrines and temples. The earliest Greek beliefs of dreams was that their gods physically visited the dreamers, where they entered through a keyhole, and exiting the same way after the divine message was given.

Dreams also helped their practice of medicine, sending sick people to particular temples. Sick Greeks visited these temples to perform various religious rites, sleep, and hope to have a dream that assured a return to good health. They slept for many days, sometimes trying for weeks or months until they had the “right” dream. Antiphon wrote the first known Greek book on dreams in the 5th century BC. In that century, other cultures influenced Greeks to developed the belief that souls left the sleeping body.[11]

Hippocrates (469-399 BC) had a simple dream theory: during the day, the soul receives images; during the night, it produces images. Greek philosopher, Aristotle (384-322 BC) believed dreams caused physiological activity. He thought dreams could analyse illness and predict diseases. In the Hellenistic times, the main interest in dreams centred around their ability to heal. Greeks of that period believed that dreams offered vital clues that could help healers diagnose the dreamer. Galen, a Greekphysician born in 129 AD, said that people should carefully observe dreams for clues to healing. He was so convinced of dream messages that he performed operations on the basis of dream interpretations.

Some Indigenous American tribes and Mexican civilizations believe that dreams are a way of visiting and having contact with their ancestors.[12]

The Middle Ages brought a harsh interpretation of dreams. They were seen as evil, and the images as temptations from the devil. Many believed that during sleep, the devil could fill the human mind with corrupting and harmful thoughts. Martin Luther, founder of Protestantism, believed dreams were the work of the Devil. However, Catholics such as St. Augustine and St. Jerome claimed that the direction of their life were heavily influenced by their dreams.

Nun’s dream by Karl Briullov

In the early 19th century, many thought dreams had no meaning at all, that they were just caused by anxiety, family issues, or even by upset stomachs. Later in the 19th century, psychotherapist Sigmund Freud argued for the importance of dreams and their significance for psychology. He created a great vogue for the study of dreams.[13] In 1899 he published Die Traumdeutung. In English it was called The Interpretation of Dreams.

Freud theorized that wish fulfillment was behind most dreams. His interpreted dreams as a reflection of the dreamer’s deepest desires, going back to their childhood. To Freud, dreams were images that held important meanings. Freud’s theory distinguishes two layers of dream content: manifest and latent. Manifest (superficial) content had no significant meaning but was a mask for underlying issues of the dream. Latent content was those underlying issues; it expressed unconscious wishes or fantasies. Freud believed most dreams were of a sexual nature. From Freud’s time forward, many no longer considered dreamsdivine or demonic, but a valid mode for collecting information on an unconscious level. Freud called dreams the “royal road to the unconscious.”[14] In his earlier writings, Freud viewed the vast majority of dreams as sexual in nature, but he later shied away from this categorical position, and in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, considered trauma and aggression as other possible causes of dreams. He also considered supernatural origins in Dreams and Occultism, a lecture published in New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis [15] Freud’s, and by extension, other psychoanalytic views of dreams, have been attacked by, among others, Hans Eysenck, who wrote a book discrediting them called Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire.

Carl Jung, a student of Freud who later turned against him, also believed that dreams related to the dreamer’s wishes, which enables them to realize things they unconsciously desire, and that the dreams helps them to fulfill their wishes. Jung believed dreams were messages to the dreamer and that dreamers should pay attention for their own good. Carl Jung came to believe that dream contents present the dreamer with revelations that uncover and help to resolve emotional issues, problems, religious issues and fears.[16]

Jung believed that recurring dreams are a proof that the dreamer is neglecting an issue, thus it shows up repeatedly in dreams to demand attention. He believed that many of the symbols or images from these dreams return with each dream. Jung also said that dreams are not only important to the dreamer’s life, but that they are all parts of “one great web of psychological factors.” Such things as events, movies and people seen the previous day also play a role in dreaming. These memories leave impressions for the unconscious to deal with when the ego is at rest. The unconscious re-enacts these glimpses of the past, in the form of a dream. Jung called this a day residue.[17]

Another student of Freud’s who turned against him, Alfred Adler, believed dreams simply represented aggression. Freudian psychotherapy and psychoanalysis today have fallen out of fashion. Most modern psychologists regard Freud as being of primarily historical interest.

Main article: REM sleepEEG showing brainwaves during REM sleep

There is not a universally accepted biological definition of dreaming. In 1952, Eugene Aserinsky identified and defined rapid eye movement (REM) sleep while working in the surgery of his PhD adviser. Aserinsky noticed that the sleepers’ eyes fluttered beneath their closed eyelids. Later he used a polygraph machine to record their brainwaves during these periods. In one session, he awakened a subject who was wailing and crying out during REM and confirmed his suspicion that dreaming was occurring.[18]In 1953, Aserinsky and his advisor published the ground-breaking study in Science.[19]

Accumulated observation has shown that dreams are strongly associated with rapid eye movement sleep, during which anelectroencephalogram (EEG) shows brain activity that, among sleep states, is most like wakefulness. Participant-remembered dreams during NREM sleep are normally more mundane in comparison.[20] During a typical lifespan, a person spends a total of about six years dreaming[21] (which is about two hours each night).[22] Most dreams only last 5 to 20 minutes.[21] It is unknown where in the brain dreams originate, if there is a single origin for dreams or if multiple portions of the brain are involved, or what the purpose of dreaming is for the body or mind.

During REM sleep, the release of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine, serotonin and histamine is completely suppressed.[23][24][25] As a result, motor neurons are not stimulated, a condition known as REM atonia. This prevents dreams from resulting in dangerous movements of the body.

According to a report in the journal Neuron, rat brains show evidence of complex activity during sleep, including the activation in memory of long sequences of activity.[26][27] Studies show that various species of mammals and birds experience REM during sleep,[28] and follow the same series of sleeping states as humans.[26]

Despite their power to bewilder, arouse, frighten or amuse, dreams can often be ignored in mainstream models of cognitive psychology.[29] As methods of introspection were replaced with more self-consciously objective methods in the social sciences in 1930s and 1940s, dream studies dropped out of the scientific literature. Dreams were neither directly observable by an experimenter nor were subjects’ dream reports reliable, being prey to the familiar problems of distortion due to delayed recall, if they were recalled at all. According to Sigmund Freud, dreams are more often forgotten entirely, perhaps due to their prohibited character. Altogether, these problems seemed to put them beyond the realm of science.

The discovery that dreams take place primarily during a distinctive electrophysiological state of sleep, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which can be identified by objective criteria, led to the rebirth of interest in this phenomenon. When REM sleep episodes were timed for their duration and subjects woken to make reports before major editing or forgetting could take place, it was determined that subjects accurately matched the length of time they judged the dream narrative to be ongoing to the length of REM sleep that preceded the awakening. There is no “time dilation” effect; a five-minute dream takes roughly five minutes of real time to play out.[30] This close correlation of REM sleep and dream experience was the basis of the first series of reports describing the nature of dreaming: that it is a regular nightly, rather than occasional, phenomenon, and a high-frequency activity within each sleep period occurring at predictable intervals of approximately every 60–90 minutes in all humans throughout the life span.

REM sleep episodes and the dreams that accompany them lengthen progressively across the night, with the first episode being shortest, of approximately 10–12 minutes duration, and the second and third episodes increasing to 15–20 minutes. Dreams at the end of the night may last as long as 15 minutes, although these may be experienced as several distinct stories due to momentary arousals interrupting sleep as the night ends. Dream reports can be reported from normal subjects on 50% of the occasion when an awakening is made prior to the end of the first REM period. This rate of retrieval is increased to about 99% when awakenings are made from the last REM period of the night. This increase in the ability to recall appears related to intensification across the night in the vividness of dream imagery, colors, and emotions.[citation needed]

Dreams in animals

REM sleep and the ability to dream seem to be embedded in the biology of many organisms that live on Earth. All mammals experience REM. The range of REM can be seen across species: dolphins experience minimum REM, while humans remain in the middle and the opossum and the armadillo are among the most prolific dreamers.[31]

Studies have observed dreaming in monkeys, dogs, cats, rats, elephants and shrews. There have also been signs of dreaming in certain birds and reptiles.[32]Sleeping and dreaming are intertwined. Scientific research results regarding the function of dreaming in animals remain disputable, however, the function of sleeping in living organisms is increasingly clear. For example, recent sleep deprivation experiments conducted on rats and other animals have resulted in the deterioration of physiological functioning and actual tissue damage of the animals.[33]

In 1954 the Theta rhythm was discovered by two scientists at the University of California at Los Angeles when experimenting with rabbits, shrews, moles and rats. The Theta Rhythm is the oscillatory pattern of electric activity in the brain. This discovery lead to a commentary published in 1972 that explained differences in Theta Rhythm where defined by respective animal behaviors. Awake animals showed high Theta Rhythm when behaving in ways that where crucial to their survival, for example: eating and reproducing. This apparently was a response to a changing environment. The Theta Rhythm occurs during REM and studies suggest it “reflected a neural process whereby information that is essential to the survival of the species” is gathered throughout the day and is “reprocessed into memory during REM sleep”. In conclusion: “dreams may reflect a memory-processing mechanism inherited from lower species”.[34]

Some scientists argue that humans dream for the same reason other mammals do. From a Darwinian perspective dreams would have to fulfill some kind of biological requirement or provide some benefit for natural selection to take place. Antti Revonsuo, a professor at the University of Turku in Finland, claims that centuries ago dreams would prepare humans for recognizing and avoiding danger by presenting a simulation of threatening events. This threat-simulation theory was presented in 2000.[35]

Activation synthesis theoryMain article: Activation-synthesis hypothesis

In 1976 J. Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley proposed a new theory that changed dream research, challenging the previously held Freudian view of dreams as subconscious wishes to be interpreted. Activation synthesis theory asserts that the sensory experiences are fabricated by the cortex as a means of interpreting chaotic signals from the pons. They propose that during REM sleep, the ascending cholinergic PGO (ponto-geniculo-occipital) waves stimulate higher midbrain and forebrain cortical structures, producing rapid eye movements. The activated forebrain then synthesizes the dream out of this internally generated information. They assume that the same structures that induce REM sleep also generate sensory information.

Hobson’s 1976 research suggested that the signals interpreted as dreams originated in the brain stem during REM sleep. However, research by Mark Solms suggests that dreams are generated in the forebrain, and that REM sleep and dreaming are not directly related.[36] While working in the neurosurgery department at hospitals in Johannesburg and London, Solms had access to patients with various brain injuries. He began to question patients about their dreams and confirmed that patients with damage to the parietal lobe stopped dreaming; this finding was in line with Hobson’s 1977 theory. However, Solms did not encounter cases of loss of dreaming with patients having brain stem damage. This observation forced him to question Hobson’s prevailing theory, which marked the brain stem as the source of the signals interpreted as dreams.

Solms viewed the idea of dreaming as a function of many complex brain structures as validating Freudian dream theory, an idea that drew criticism from Hobson. In 1978, Solms, along with partners William Kauffman and Edward Nadar, undertook a series of traumatic-injury impact studies using several different species of primates, particularly howler monkeys, in order to disprove Hobson’s postulation that the brain stem played a significant role in dream pathology. Unfortunately, Solms’ experiments proved inconclusive, as the high mortality rateassociated with using a hydraulic impact pin to artificially induce brain damage in test subjects meant that his final candidate pool was too small to satisfy the requirements of thescientific method.[37]

Continual-activation theory

Combining Hobson’s activation synthesis hypothesis with Solms’ findings, the continual-activation theory of dreaming presented by Jie Zhang proposes that dreaming is a result of brain activation and synthesis; at the same time, dreaming and REM sleep are controlled by different brain mechanisms. Zhang hypothesizes that the function of sleep is to process, encode and transfer the data from the short-term memory to the long-term memory, though there is not much evidence backing up this so-called “consolidation.” NREM sleep processes the conscious-related memory (declarative memory), and REM sleep processes the unconscious related memory (procedural memory).

Zhang assumes that during REM sleep the unconscious part of a brain is busy processing the procedural memory; meanwhile, the level of activation in the conscious part of the brain descends to a very low level as the inputs from the sensory are basically disconnected. This triggers the “continual-activation” mechanism to generate a data stream from the memory stores to flow through the conscious part of the brain. Zhang suggests that this pulse-like brain activation is the inducer of each dream. He proposes that, with the involvement of the brain associative thinking system, dreaming is, thereafter, self-maintained with the dreamer’s own thinking until the next pulse of memory insertion. This explains why dreams have both characteristics of continuity (within a dream) and sudden changes (between two dreams).[38][39]

Eugen Tarnow suggests that dreams are ever-present excitations of long-term memory, even during waking life. The strangeness of dreams is due to the format of long-term memory, reminiscent of Penfield & Rasmussen’s findings that electrical excitations of the cortex give rise to experiences similar to dreams. During waking life an executive function interprets long-term memory consistent with reality checking. Tarnow’s theory is a reworking of Freud’s theory of dreams in which Freud’s unconscious is replaced with the long-term memory system and Freud’s “Dream Work” describes the structure of long-term memory.[40]

Location of hippocampus

A 2001 study showed evidence that illogical locations, characters, and dream flow may help the brain strengthen the linking and consolidation ofsemantic memories.[41] These conditions may occur because, during REM sleep, the flow of information between the hippocampus and neocortex is reduced.[42] Increasing levels of the stress hormone cortisol late in sleep (often during REM sleep) cause this decreased communication. One stage of memory consolidation is the linking of distant but related memories. Payne and Nadal hypothesize these memories are then consolidated into a smooth narrative, similar to a process that happens when memories are created under stress.[43]

[edit]Dreams for removing junk

Robert (1886),[44] a physician from Hamburg, was the first who suggested that dreams are a need and that they have the function to erase (a) sensory impressions that were not fully worked up, and (b) ideas that were not fully developed during the day. By the dream work, incomplete material is either removed (suppressed) or deepened and included into memory. Robert’s ideas were cited repeatedly by Freud in his Die Traumdeutung. Hughlings Jackson (1911) viewed that sleep serves to sweep away unnecessary memories and connections from the day. This was revised in 1983 by Crick and Mitchison’s “reverse learning” theory, which states that dreams are like the cleaning-up operations of computers when they are off-line, removing (suppressing) parasitic nodes and other “junk” from the mind during sleep.[45][46] However, the opposite view that dreaming has an information handling, memory-consolidating function (Hennevin and Leconte, 1971) is also common. Dreams are a result of the spontaneous firings of neural patterns while the brain is undergoing memory consolidation while sleeping.

During sleep the eyes are closed, so that the brain to some degree becomes isolated from the outside world. Moreover all signals from the senses (except olfaction) must pass through the thalamus before they reach the brain cortex, and during sleep thalamic activity is suppressed.[47] This means that the brain mainly works with signals from itself. A well-known phenomenon in dynamical physical systems where the level of input and output from the system is low is that oscillation makes spontaneous resonance patterns to occur. Hence, dreams may be the simple consequence of neural oscillation.

Coutts[48] describes dreams as playing a central role in a two-phase sleep process that improves the mind’s ability to meet human needs during wakefulness. During the accommodation phase, mental schemas self-modify by incorporating dream themes. During the emotional selection phase, dreams test prior schema accommodations. Those that appear adaptive are retained, while those that appear maladaptive are culled. The cycle maps to the sleep cycle, repeating several times during a typical nights sleep. Alfred Adler suggested that dreams are often emotional preparations for solving problems, intoxicating an individual away from common sense toward private logic. The residual dream feelings may either reinforce or inhibit contemplated action.

Numerous theories state that dreaming is a random by-product of REM sleep physiology and that it does not serve any natural purpose.[49] Flanagan claims that “dreams are evolutionaryepiphenomena” and they have no adaptive function in the least. “Dreaming came along as a free ride on a system designed to think and to sleep.[50]” Hobson, for different reasons, also considers dreams epiphenomena. He believes that the substance of dreams have no significant influence on waking actions, and most people go about their daily lives perfectly well without remembering their dreams.[51]

Hobson proposed the activation-synthesis theory, which states that “there is a randomness of dream imagery and the randomness synthesizes dream-generated images to fit the patterns of internally generated stimulations”.[52] This theory is based on the physiology of REM sleep, and Hobson believes dreams are the outcome of the forebrain reacting to random activity beginning at the brainstem. Overall, this theory has obtained broad support for a while because it corresponds to physiological data and its explanation of dreaming applies to a majority of peoples’ random dream experiences.[53] The activation-synthesis theory hypothesizes that the peculiar nature of dreams is attributed to certain parts of the brain trying to piece together a story out of what is essentially bizarre information.[54]

However, evolutionary psychologists believe dreams serve some adaptive function for survival. Deirdre Barrett describes dreaming as simply “thinking in different biochemical state” and believes people continue to work on all the same problems—personal and objective—in that state.[55] Her research finds that anything—math, musical composition, business dilemmas—may get solved during dreaming, but the two areas especially likely to help are 1) anything where vivid visualization contributes to the solution, whether in artistic design or invention of 3-D technological devices and 2) problem where the solution lies in “thinking outside the box”—i.e. the person is stuck because conventional wisdom on how to approach the problem is wrong.[56][57] In a related theory, which Mark Blechner terms “Oneiric Darwinism,” dreams are seen as creating new ideas through the generation of random thought mutations. Some of these may be rejected by the mind as useless, while others may be seen as valuable and retained.[58]

Finnish psychologist Antti Revonsuo posits that dreams have evolved for “threat simulation” exclusively. According to the Threat Simulation Theory he proposes, during much of human evolution physical and interpersonal threats were serious, giving reproductive advantage to those who survived them. Therefore dreaming evolved to replicate these threats and continually practice dealing with them. In support of this theory, Revonsuo shows that contemporary dreams comprise much more threatening events than people meet in daily non-dream life, and the dreamer usually engages appropriately with them.[59] It is suggested by this theory that dreams serve the purpose of allowing for the rehearsal of threatening scenarios in order to better prepare an individual for real-life threats.

A more extensive view of ‘dreaming as play’ is proposed by Humphrey who proposes we dream to practice many different physical, intellectual and social skills, not just to evolve past threats.[59]

The main competitors against this kind of theory regard dreaming as a necessary by-product of random cortical activation, which occurs for other reasons.[59] Crick and Mitchison believe that “cortical neural networks become overloaded during learning and that the function of REM sleep is to remove superfluous connections by randomly flooding them”.[59] In other words this theory believes we dream so that we can forget[citation needed].

Psychosomatic theory of dreams

Y.D. Tsai developed in 1995 a 3-hypothesis theory[60] that is claimed to provide a mechanism for mind-body interaction and explain many dream-related phenomena, including hypnosis, meridians in Chinese medicine, the increase in heart rate and breathing rate during REM sleep, that babies have longer REM sleep, lucid dreams, etc.

Dreams are a product of “dissociated imagination,” which is dissociated from the conscious self and draws material from sensory memory for simulation, with feedback resulting in hallucination. By simulating the sensory signals to drive the autonomous nerves, dreams can affect mind-body interaction. In the brain and spine, the autonomous “repair nerves,” which can expand the blood vessels, connect with compression and pain nerves. Repair nerves are grouped into many chains called meridians in Chinese medicine. When some repair nerves are prodded by compression or pain to send out their repair signals, a chain reaction spreads out to set other repair nerves in the same meridian into action. While dreaming, the body also employs the meridians to repair the body and help it grow and develop by simulating very intensive movement-compression signals to expand the blood vessels when the level of growth enzymes increase.

]Other hypotheses on dreaming

There are many other hypotheses about the function of dreams, including:[61]

• Dreams allow the repressed parts of the mind to be satisfied through fantasy while keeping the conscious mind from thoughts that would suddenly cause one to awaken from shock.[62]
• Freud suggested that bad dreams let the brain learn to gain control over emotions resulting from distressing experiences.[61]
• Jung suggested that dreams may compensate for one-sided attitudes held in waking consciousness.[63]
• Ferenczi[64] proposed that the dream, when told, may communicate something that is not being said outright.
• Dreams regulate mood.[65]
• Hartmann[66] says dreams may function like psychotherapy, by “making connections in a safe place” and allowing the dreamer to integrate thoughts that may be dissociated during waking life.
• More recent research by psychologist Joe Griffin, following a twelve-year review of data from all major sleep laboratories, led to the formulation of the expectation fulfilment theory of dreaming, which suggests that dreaming metaphorically completes patterns of emotional expectation in the autonomic nervous system and lowers stress levels in mammals.[67][68]

Dream content

From the 1940s to 1985, Calvin S. Hall collected more than 50,000 dream reports at Western Reserve University. In 1966 Hall and Van De Castle published The Content Analysis of Dreams in which they outlined a coding system to study 1,000 dream reports from college students.[69] It was found that people all over the world dream of mostly the same things. Hall’s complete dream reports became publicly available in the mid-1990s by Hall’s protégé William Domhoff, allowing further different analysis. Personal experiences from the last day or week are frequently incorporated into dreams.[70]

Lucid dreaming has many benefits:

• Getting over your fears
• Experiencing a dream-like state
• Performing actions you’ve always wanted to do but couldn’t
• Sensation of a parallel universe and dream control
• rehearsing a scenario
• create new ideas, motivate yourself

There are many more benefits which i will not go into detail because there are simply too many. Achieving lucidity requires practice just like any other skill. Yes, lucid dreaming is a skill and it must be treated like one in seriousness. Be patient when learning because no one can learn a skill in a day or two so stick to it and the rewards are great. Now on to the fun part; to become lucid, you have to train your brain.
Training Your Brain:

There are things you can do to help your brain to learn the art of lucid dreaming. Remember that these should be practiced with patience as your brain also needs time to get used to.

• Ask yourself if you are in a dream. throughout the day ask yourself if you are in a dream. Literally just ask” hey self, am i in a dream?”. This might sound silly but eventually, when your brain gets used to it to a point where you can ask yourself as a habit, your brain will know when it is dreaming. For example, if you are in a dream, you have the same habits of when you are awake. So when you are dreaming and the question pops up: “am i dreaming?” you will instantly realize that you in fact, are dreaming.
• Remember your dreams. Your brain will slowly learn the characteristics of a dream. If you remind yourself about your dreams and how physics and laws are broken, eventually your brain will just realize by itself when you are dreaming.
• Do reality checks. What i mean by this is check throughout the day the reality you are in. For example, in dreams, light switches don’t work, you cannot close your eyes, you cannot stop breathing, clocks don’t work. So if you are in a dream and you notice the clock isn’t working right, then right away you know you are dreaming.

Follow these steps and eventually, just like learning a new skill, you can become a master at lucid dreaming.

This happens because the main function of the unconscious mind that produces your dreams is to protect your mental health. When you are in love you can easily lose your mind.

The psychiatrist Carl Jung managed to discover the real meaning of the dream language and I managed to prove that his statements were real discoveries. This means that you can safely trust the information and the guidance you receive in dream messages.

The impression that dreams have no meaning or that they simply reflect our fears and emotions is totally false. Dreams about love contain important information that protects your mental stability and gives you a true vision about what is happening to you, about the personality of the person you love, and about your relationship.

If you keep dreaming about a special person, this is a serious indication that you must learn many things about them.

* Perhaps this is not the right person for you. You must understand that you will be hurt if you’ll insist on having a love relationship with them.

* Perhaps this person loves you too, but there are many complications in your way until you’ll finally have the love relationship you desire.

* Perhaps you have really found your perfect match and you must understand the importance of this meeting for your life.  

* Perhaps there is someone else threatening your relationship with him/her and you must be aware of this danger.

There are numerous possibilities, depending on your case. The unconscious mind sends you many warnings when you are in danger. It also sends you many enlightening signs when you cannot believe that you have really found the ideal person for you.

If you have a problematic relationship, the unconscious mind will show you how to eliminate what is causing problems, so that you may have the perfect relationship you desire.

Even if there are not visible problems, if you have constant dreams about the person you love this means that you must understand something you ignore about this person. You have to pay attention to various details in order to save your relationship, or you have to understand that this person is not the idol you have in mind.

The unconscious mind sends you many dreams about the person you love when you are rejected or betrayed. You must understand their mistakes and stop believing that they were the ideal person for you.

If you keep dreaming about your ex-boyfriend or girlfriend, this means that you didn’t pay attention to the bitter lessons you had with your deception in love. You are still looking for a partner that has the same behavior of your old partner. You must stop caring about a person who won’t respect your feelings.

In case you have dreams about someone you met somewhere, but you are not so sure if you like them or not, this means that this person will become very important for you in a while. The unconscious mind sends you dreams about someone who will become a special person for you when you’ll pay attention to their charm even before you’ll notice their presence.

The unconscious guidance gives you relief, real solutions, and real protection. You learn how to interpret the other person’s reactions, what they really like, and how to avoid all conflicts.

Christina Sponias continued Carl Jung’s research into the human psyche, discovering the cure for all mental illnesses, and simplifying the scientific method of dream interpretation that teaches you how to accurately translate the meaning of your dreams, so that you can find health, wisdom and happiness.

Learn more at:

http://www.scientificdreaminterpretation.com

http://www.booksirecommend.com