For centuries, scientists, philosophers and psychologists have wondered how sleep and dreams affect us.
Why or how we dream has forever been a question that many have asked, but few answers have followed.
Some scientists attribute our emotional arousal and other events to the frequency and intensity of our dreams, but can we really be sure?
What do my dreams mean?
Dreams have always had a tremendous affect on people’s lives. From guiding the political, social and everyday decisions of ancient civilizations, to the Greek philosophers who attributed them to natural sources, dreams are as perplexing as any other phenomenon.
Sigmund Freud promoted the idea that dreams gave us access to our unconscious repressed conflicts.
Another psychoanalyst, Alfred Adler, believed another idea - that dreams reflect our current lifestyle and offer solutions to contemporary problems.
These and many other theories have arisen over the years, but none have had such a tremendous affect on dream research as a discovery made in the mid-1900s.
What is REM sleep?
In 1953 Eugene Aserinsky and Nathaniel Kleitman came upon the idea of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and its connection with an increased frequency in dreaming.
It is known now that REM sleep leads to a better waking experience and it is also the time when our most vivid dreaming occurs. Some scientists have even suggested that we spend more than two hours a night dreaming.
Vivid dreams usually occur during the REM stage for most people, while less vivid dreams occur at other times of the night. Whatever the case, dreams are a strange phenomenon that still remain a scientific mystery
