"What Your Dreams Mean" discusses Dr. Allan Hobson's discovery that dreams serve a physiological and psychological purpose. Without dreams, the brain would not be able to function during the day. Even when sleeping, 50% to 80% of the brain is active. During the periods of REM, the brain is functioning at 100% and this is when most dramatic dreaming occurs. Dreaming helps to consolidate learning and procedural memories and prepares the brain to be awake. The reason we can't remember our dreams are that the brain doesn't secrete the hormones necessary to make memories during sleep. To remember your dreams, you must wake up quickly, wake without moving and you must make an effort to recall the dream. Because we wake up faster after having a negative dream, we are more likely to remember them. In order to remember your dreams, write down everything you remember from your dream when you wake up.

This article relates to chapter 4, page 149 in the discussion of dreams. Freud believed that people's wishes, conflicts and desires were represented in dreams. A second theory is called activation-synthesis hypothesis which says that dreams are merely another kind of thinking that occurs when people are asleep. A third theory is called activation-information-mode model in which information that is accessed during waking hours can have an influence on the making of dreams. In other words, when a dream is being formed, the brain uses pieces of of a person's experiences over the last few days to form the dream rather than just random information from memory.

Healthystyle Jan/Feb 2010 Emily Listfield