What Are Dreams And How Do They Happen?

Dreams are a series of thoughts, images and emotions that occur during sleep. Man, since the earliest times, man has been asking the question "what are dreams?" because of their mysterious nature. It is important to understand the cycle that we go through when we sleep in order to answer what are dreams and how do they happen?

The average person sleeps eight hours a day and throughout this time, the person goes through a sleep cycle several times over. There are two basic types of sleep - one is characterized by very slow brain waves, hence, known as the slow wave sleep or SWS and the other one is REM sleep, which stands for rapid eye movement. There are four SWS stages that a person goes through during sleep and then the person enters the fifth stage, which is the REM sleep. This entire sleep cycle is repeated throughout the entire team the person is sleeping but of course a person can wake up at any stage.

It is during the REM sleep that a person usually starts dreaming. Rapid Eye Movement is called so because if you observe a person in this stage of sleep, you will notice that beneath their eyelids, their eyes are moving rapidly from side to side or as if they are following the actions of someone or something. It is also during this time that the body becomes seemingly paralyzed.

A lot of dream research has been done to uncover what are dreams and their meanings. A major theory is that dreams are neuro-cognitive developmental activities. In simple words, dreaming is a product of the central nervous system and our thinking process and is part of a person's developmental process. Research indicated that humans develop dream activity over the first 8 years since birth, around the time that cognitive and linguistic developments also occur. And because dreaming is developmental it changes as the person grows. This is why what are dreams to children is different from what are dreams to adults.

However, it was discovered recently that dreams occur in the other stages of sleep and not just during REM. Although, many believe that REM sleep and the dreams during this stage are vital to a person's development. REM is also described as the deepest form of sleep so it is believed that it has significant restorative benefits to a person. Aside from innate neurological factors, certain illnesses or drugs can also affect dream activity.