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Dreaming Research Papers

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Humans spend about one-third of their lives asleep, and research says that a quarter of our time asleep is filled with dreams. Dreaming is very mysterious matter, and while many theories have been made, scientists still do not know why we dream when we are asleep. However, it is important to remember that scientists are still uncovering the function of sleep itself. The study of dreaming still has a long way to go, but hopefully one day, we will uncover the mystery of dreaming. So what are dreams exactly? Dreams are a universal human experience that can be described as a state of consciousness characterized by sensory, cognitive and emotional occurrences during sleep. The dreamer has reduced control over the content, visual images …show more content…

There are studies that have shown that sleep and dreaming are linked to learning and to repair the body and mind. If we were to stop REM sleep or dreaming, the body recovers by increasing dream sleep first, recovering the loss of REM almost precisely. This suggests that dreaming is important. It has been observed that a lack of sleep causes waking dreams, interruption with memory and learning, difficulty of thinking straight, less associations, and more. It has therefore been suggested that REM or dream sleep is important in maintaining our well-being. Dream content varies depending on the stage of sleep and time of night. Research has also revealed that characteristics of the dreamer and environmental factors can influence the nature of dreams. The three human characteristics that affect dream content are age, gender, and personality. It is reported that children are more likely to experience dreaming (probably because they get more REM sleep) and their dreams are reported to be more emotional, particularly
Tran …show more content…

Ernest Hartmann, author of The Nightmare and Dreams and Nightmares has performed one of the most extensive studies of frequent nightmares. Hartmann states that the dream, notably the central image (CI), pictures the emotion of the dreamer and that the intensity of the central image is a measure of the strength of the emotion. This might be seen in nightmares when there is a single powerful emotion following a traumatic event. Nightmares are often caused by a traumatic event. Trauma-caused nightmares are often a repetitive repeat of actual experiences that the dreamer

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