This finding is interesting because the increased frontal theta activity the researchers observed looks just like the successful encoding and retrieval of autobiographical memories seen while we are awake. That is, it is the same electrical oscillations in the frontal cortex that make the recollection of episodic memories (e.g., things that happened to you) possible. Thus, these findings suggest that the neurophysiological mechanisms that we employ while dreaming (and recalling dreams) are the same as when we construct and retrieve memories while we are awake.
In another recent study conducted by the same research team, the authors used the latest MRI techniques to investigate the relation between dreaming and the role of deep-brain structures. In their study, the researchers found that vivid, bizarre and emotionally intense dreams (the dreams that people usually remember) are linked to parts of the amygdala and hippocampus. While the amygdala plays a primary role in the processing and memory of emotional reactions, the hippocampus has been implicated in important memory functions, such as the consolidation of information from short-term to long-term memory.
The proposed link between our dreams and emotions is also highlighted in another recent study published by Matthew Walker and colleagues at the Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab at UC Berkeley, who found that a reduction in REM sleep (or less “dreaming”) influences our ability to understand complex emotions in daily life – an essential feature of human social functioning. Scientists have also recently identified where dreaming is likely to occur in the brain. A very rare clinical condition known as “Charcot-Wilbrand Syndrome” has been known to cause (among other neurological symptoms) loss of the ability to dream. However, it was not until a few years ago that a patient reported to have lost her ability to dream while having virtually no other permanent neurological symptoms. The patient suffered a lesion in a part of the brain known as the right inferior lingual gyrus (located in the visual cortex). Thus, we know that dreams are generated in, or transmitted through this particular area of the brain, which is associated with visual processing, emotion and visual memories.
Taken together, these recent findings tell an important story about the underlying mechanism and possible purpose of dreaming.
Dreams seem to help us process emotions by encoding and constructing memories of them. What we see and experience in our dreams might not necessarily be real, but the emotions attached to these experiences certainly are. Our dream stories essentially try to strip the emotion out of a certain experience by creating a memory of it. This way, the emotion itself is no longer active. This mechanism fulfils an important role because when we don’t process our emotions, especially negative ones, this increases personal worry and anxiety. In fact, severe REM sleep-deprivation is increasingly correlated to the development of mental disorders. In short, dreams help regulate traffic on that fragile bridge which connects our experiences with our emotions and memories.
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19 Comments
Add CommentDoes this tie in at all with schizophrenia or Synthenesia, in your estimation? Both seem to have a dreamlike quality that they give to sensory input.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissensory output...I believe is what I meant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting. So by extension, we can speculate on the emotional lives of animals who also dream.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople who are born blind, do they dream, and if they do, what do they dream about?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBlind people do dream. Only the visual component is missing. All the other senses are present and emotions are just as strong as for sighted people.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting article. The background info and references are informative. I question, however, the following conclusion: "Our dream stories essentially try to strip the emotion out of a certain experience by creating a memory of it. This way, the emotion itself is no longer active."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe author seems to equate the 'stripping' of emotions from memories with processing them. This does not follow without further justification. Anyone care to try and clarify the author's intent? Thanks.
Dreams are visions of the future put in our heads by god in an effort to guide us!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlthough "severe REM sleep-deprivation is increasingly correlated to the development of mental disorders", unselective Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOIs) completely suppress REM sleep at higher dosages, yet they are clinically effective antidepressants. MAOIs are also used to treat social anxiety disorders. I'm not sure how this anomaly is best explained.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile dream content most likely reveals a great deal of information about processes that contribute to their execution, as a retired information systems analyst I am constantly amazed that a more fundamental purpose continues to be ignored.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInformation storage in general has two conflicting objectives: the recording of all potentially useful information and its efficient storage and optimal retrieval.
As a result, very large data acquisition systems commonly store large amounts of information very simply, as quickly as possible, to ensure that information is not lost.
Offline processed are then used to further process and reorganize the captured data to produce a database optimized for both the efficient use of storage resources using much more flexible and fastest method of data retrieval.
The offline database reorganization process may include the retrieval past data to reoptimize including related new data, for example, potentially altering stored memorizes over time - just like human memories...
The many parallels between information system processing and (imagine) human information processing seem remarkable to me! I suspect our development of information systems has quite naturally employed the fundamental methods used in our own information processes...
Fought narcolepsy for 50+yr B4 getting a doctor to chart and treat, after a watershed office episode. Immediate dreaming which occurs in short sleep seizures, I think, needs to be correlated with all other research in dreaming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting study. Thanks for sharing it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article did however leave out a key reference to a prior study on brain activity during on dream recall from Tore Nielsen and his research team at Montreal's Sacre-Coeur hospital:
http://umontreal.academia.edu/ToreNielsen/Papers/457893/Reduced_Alpha_power_associated_with_the_recall_of_mentation_from_Stage_2_and_Stage_REM_sleep
Craig Webb
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The DREAMS Foundation
http://www.dreams.ca
Would this be only for people born blind? Do those who lose their sight through accident have visual dreams?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would likely depend on which part of their visual system was damaged. If visual cortex were preserved, there should be no reason why a blind person would not be able to produce a visual dream.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Dreams seem to help us process emotions by encoding and constructing memories of them. What we see and experience in our dreams might not necessarily be real, but the emotions attached to these experiences certainly are. Our dream stories essentially try to strip the emotion out of a certain experience by creating a memory of it. This way, the emotion itself is no longer active."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile there is lots of evidence which can be marshalled in support of various hypotheses about the function of sleep, I don't believe there is any definitive evidence which proves a true function. Moreover, I'm not entirely sure how this particular study sheds any light on the purpose of dreams. It simply indicates that dreams are more likely to be remembered when the brain regions which are involved in memory are activated. It says nothing about whether or not such dreams affect our waking behaviour--that is, apart from suggesting interesting Freudian anecdotes to discuss at dinner parties.
I have always felt that some dreams each night are created to erase short term memory. The dreams are a mixed bag of recent events or sights mixed up. When I awake from these dreams I can often recognize why certain scenes are in it from recent experiences.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe emotional dreams are funny in that they seem to have an outside author...one that can push my buttons, set me up to get me mad, or embarrass me etc. etc. And I ask...why would I do that to myself?
I used a 12 week regimen of CHANTIX® (varenicline), as an aid to smoking cessation (which worked, btw).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn unusual side effect I experienced was almost incessant dreaming during sleep, with details of the dreams recallable and almost conscious.
The nature of the drug-induced dreams differed than my pre-Chantix sleep, and the normal sleep I now seem to be returned to.
I remember specific characteristics of the Chantix dreams: Black and White, no emotional feelings of fear, or enjoyment, or even being emotionally involved- these dreams were very much like watching a movie with complete detachment.
I offer the experience without conclusions.
Chantix gave me dreams in which I flew over the trees and up into the clouds and back. Loved it. Haven't had a flying dream before or since. Seemed real, as if awake.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor more on Freud and Dreams, see THE APP on javari
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFreudPsa e*Archive for writings by Freud, Anna Freud, K.R. Eissler, and books by Jennifer Arlene Stone
http://freudpsa.org
http://javari.com/Dreams.pdf
http://freud.asia
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It is true that the emotions are not erased.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd, the dream-state may be influenced by things beyond individual experience.