WHAT TRIGGERS DREAMS?

We always wonder while we wake up and try to remember what caused a certain dream to flash into our sleep. Some dreams are joyful, eventful, and highly intimate. While to its counterpart some dreams are boring, frightening, and confusing. Let us see what triggers contrasting emotions behind our closed eyes.

Dream: a virtual existence.

The purpose behind dreaming

A lot of areas to ponder on for the researchers that till what time after waking up do a person remembers what he/she saw? Does that dream make any clear narrative? Why we dream at all? Many such questions behind logical conclusions regarding dreams.

But it has always been very hard for experts to explain the role of dreams. Psychologically speaking, when we are awake, we have a certain logic for every thought, every event, every word we say or hear, and so on. When we sleep, our brain is active and in contrast, our emotional centers of brain triggers our dream, rather than the logical centers. This is the major reason why our dreams sometimes makes no sense.

Sometimes we are able to recall our dreams, and this is caused by rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. There is yet no definitive proof for it, but we can say that dreams are generally our emotional picture of recent activities and conversations happen in day to day life. 

Merged Memories, Strong Wishes, usual Fear or Insecurities, and Grown Emotions are some major reasons why a certain dream could have been triggered. Some experts say that dreams are essential for mental and physical well being, while some suggested that dreams have no sense at all. All these discussions ultimately draws the conclusion that there is no single scientific theory yet emerged to explain reason for a certain dream.

What do dreams try to say?

Though the science behind is unclear, there are certain mechanisms that psychologists, philosophers, spiritual experts, and mental health experts determined for the meaning of dreams.

• Due to emotional centers being active, our dreams might be ways to deal with the emotional tensions going on in our life, somewhat different from what we cannot do consciously.
• Our deepest desires are sometimes visible behind our eyes. This can be our motivation, desires, passion, sexual desires, aggression, etc.
• The reason why some experts suggested that dreams are essential because they are compilation of our random thoughts and memories. Sometimes we are able to make certain connections after waking up, which further helps in extracting useful and creative information.
• Dreams reflect our personal life. We usually see the person we recently met, girl/boy we have crush on, the celebrities like whom we wanted to become, etc. this supports the theory of our brain to stay active while sleep.
• The potential dangers are also a part of our thoughts. This is the reason we have nightmares. Like all other dreams, these are also essential for us to cope with some extremely intense scenarios in our life.
• Philosophical and spiritual explanations are also there which are relatively concerned more by the high believers of God. They are mostly about seeing animals, dead bodies, being dead, seeing our closed loved ones dying, seeing our dead loved ones alive, etc. which triggers our mental peace. 

Dreaming usually falls more under psychology and less under medical science. People go through stressful phase of life where they are even scared of sleeping. This includes daily struggles, depressive disorders, bipolar disorders, general anxiety disorders where people sometimes may get frightened due to their reality but also due to dreams.

Sleep disorders and mental health issues

Other factors that cause disturbance in sleep due to dreaming are sleep disorders, excess of alcohol, pregnancy, love-relationship issues, medications, etc. which further invokes suicidal thoughts which are extremely harmful and immediate psychiatric help should be taken. 

We dream more during childhood and during miserable moments of life like mourning. There are common themes like chasing, being chased, dying, falling, sex, etc. which are triggering and have certain meaning including stress, anxiety, love, conflict, etc.

Historically, dreams sometimes helps in predicting future events and considered to impart wisdom and receive message from the spirit world. Science may not consider these facts but globally people of high spiritual beliefs would certainly believe them.  

Bottom Line

In reality, we all are different from one another. We might act while dreaming. You must have heard your roommates singing while sleeping. You must have heard your homie asked you not to murmur while sleeping. But not all of us do that. So our stimulus response is different. This is why there is no absolute theory to describe, all the theories we discussed or ever being suggested are related.

In my opinion, we should be aware of our mental health and consequently it would not bother us a lot while strangest of the dreams. In contrast, we would be able to counter our potential fears and cope with them efficiently.

Reference theories:

1. Sigmund Freud's theory of dreams.
2. Dream rebound theory.
3. Activation-synthesis hypothesis of dreaming.
4. Self-organization theory of dreaming.

Reference Websites:

1. https://www.healthline.com/health/why-do-we-dream#why-do-we-have-nightmares
2. https://www.verywellmind.com/why-do-we-dream-top-dream-theories-2795931