16
votes
Why do dreams lose clarity quickly over time after we awaken?
Short answer: Because areas of the brain needed for remembering are turned off during dreaming.
Dream Amnesia:
The process of converting perception into a memory construct that can be stored is ...
- 19.1k
13
votes
Accepted
Why do we wake up when we die in our dreams?
When you dream you're in REM sleep (rapid eye movement). REM sleep is only slightly more "deep" than stage 1 of non-REM which means it's not that hard to wake you up in the first place.
Dying in a ...
- 338
8
votes
Why do we always wake up at the climax of our dreams, even when it is an alarm that wakes us?
There are two possibilities. One is that we do tend to wake up more at the climax of dreams, and that somehow our dreams can sync up with external input like an alarm clock so that the climax of the ...
- 5,874
7
votes
Why do dreams lose clarity quickly over time after we awaken?
State dependent memory could play a role in quickly forgetting dreams after awakening.
See my question here: What is the scientific term for unexpected, spontaneous dream recall? I ask about a ...
- 9,350
7
votes
Accepted
What is the cause of frequent nightmares?
Nightmares can be defined as (Pagel, 2000):
...vivid and terrifying nocturnal episodes in which the dreamer is abruptly awakened from sleep. Typically, the dreamer wakes from REM sleep and is able ...
- 20.4k
7
votes
Accepted
How can someone asleep recognize a very brief sound?
Short answer
The auditory system remains active during sleep.
Background
Filtering of sensory input during sleep is a recognized phenomenon and indeed the senses are typically lulled during sleep. ...
- 20.4k
6
votes
Accepted
Why do we wake up from sleep (from a dream) as soon as we figure out reality?
When you are dreaming, and you realize that it is a dream, the initial surprise can wake you up. However, you can build a skill for staying in the dream by anchoring yourself to simple actions in the ...
- 512
6
votes
Do dreams repeat/continue? Or is it just a perception that a dream repeated?
Disclaimer: My answer is about recurrent dreams. I don't have any immediate sources to consult on the continuation part (and there are less references to it in literature), but I'd be very surprised ...
- 1,115
6
votes
Accepted
Death from sleep deprivation, what physical mechanism is failing that makes one not to be alive anymore?
As far as I know REM is just brain running a simulation
During sleep hormones and neurotransmitters shift in their quantities available along the phases of sleep: slow wave sleep, intermediate ...
- 597
5
votes
Accepted
Are there studies on the effect of nicotine patches on dream vividness and dream recall?
Here's the only one that's easy to find in google scholar, but there might be more:
Page, F., Coleman, G., & Conduit, R. (2006). The effect of transdermal nicotine patches on sleep and dreams. ...
- 441
5
votes
When are dreams created?
The origins of dreams have been studied by many different people and your approach to understanding the origins depends on your approach, however, dreams seem to originate within the unconscious part ...
- 12k
5
votes
Do neurons fire at a faster rate during dreaming?
In REM sleep, the EEG is remarkably similar to that of the awake state (Purves et al., 2001). Although the EEG represents the synchronized activity of many neurons in the cortex, it does give us a ...
- 20.4k
5
votes
Accepted
Can an external stimulus change the way your dream ends?
I don't know any scientific evidence of it, but I personally have experienced it many times. I have come to think that it is due to the decreasing depth of sleep. You may know that sleep progresses ...
- 229
4
votes
Accepted
What brain regions are activated when a dream is remembered?
Your memory of a dream would be an autobiographical memory, which is a memory system that is based on a combination of episodic memories and semantic memories. Autobiographical memories are memories ...
- 3,692
4
votes
Does individual understanding or perception, determine dream lucidity?
I am unsure if you mean, if the ability to lucid dream comes with age? or if the type or degree of lucidity within the dream is different depending on the individual? So I will aim for a ballpark ...
- 2,426
4
votes
Why do we always wake up at the climax of our dreams, even when it is an alarm that wakes us?
I'd reckon this can be due to the chance of you remembering the dream when you wake up. When your dream was mundane (i.e. emotionless), you probably have no reason to remember it - when awake. (see ...
- 141
4
votes
Accepted
Does the use of cannabis affect the ability to recall dreams?
Current research tells us that yes, cannabis will affect the ability to recall dreams. As for the negative - positive outcomes, it seems to be subjective.
One of the few researchers in this field, ...
- 156
4
votes
Can we interconnect with other people mentally during dreaming?
Short answer
Telepathy is pseudoscience.
Background
I think you are referring to the phenomenon of telepathy, which can be defined as
[T]he purported transmission of information from one person ...
- 20.4k
4
votes
Accepted
My Mind Shows Me My Future
It's a phenomenon called déjà rêvé, the French for "already dreamed":
If you've ever felt like you predicted something in a dream, you might have felt it wise to keep that feeling to ...
- 10.1k
4
votes
Can dreams predict the future?
Short answer
Dreams cannot predict the future.
Background
Likely you are referring to Deja reve ('already dreamed'), which has been hypothesized to be (Schredi et al., 2017):
...the distinct ...
- 20.4k
4
votes
Accepted
Taking Control of Your Dream
The term for this phenomenon is "lucid dreaming". It is common to have some lucid dreaming experiences, but different people have different occurrence rates of lucid vs non-lucid dreams, and the level ...
- 6,994
3
votes
Why do we talk unconsciously while sleeping
Brief periods of sleep-talking (somniloquy), mostly gibberish, are quite common, particularly in children. It is not typically useful to call something a "disorder" unless it is causing a problem. ...
- 19.1k
3
votes
Do highly creative people dream more and/or differently than ordinary people?
There are some studies that seem to support your suggestion e.g.:
Dream reports and creative tendencies in students of the arts, sciences, and engineering (paywalled, so I'm quoting the abstract):
...
- 161
3
votes
Why does even the most rational brain forget logic in a dream?
Neither rational nor logical
"...there is overwhelming evidence that Humans cannot be [rational]" - Daniel Kahneman (Thinking Fast and Slow).
To begin with, the brain is neither rational ...
- 1,115
3
votes
Does data support Domhoff's neurocognitive theory of dreams?
The question body emphasizes the question whether Domhoff's neurocognitive theory of dreams is reliable.
Reliability is the "consistency" or repeatability of research measures. So, a theory cannot ...
- 20.4k
3
votes
Activation of brain reasoning areas during dreaming
I cannot answer from fMRI's, but this theory conflicts with other anecdotal evidence from medicine.
In sensory deprivation, or under psychotomimetic substances, you can be awake and unimpaired ...
- 139
3
votes
Can time be slowed in a lucid dream?
I'd say yes, in german literature there are some reportings of athelets "training" in slow motion while they are lucid dreaming. I'll try to recap those reportings in english.
Paul Tholey &...
- 161
3
votes
Does dreaming cuts our sleeping hours?
One small study (2015) in otherwise healty subjects, found no correlation between nightmares and the quality of sleep measured using widely used objective methods, or more precisely
sleep measures ...
- 10.1k
3
votes
Accepted
Why didn't I wake up after dying in a dream?
We still don't know much about dreams, and researching them is, at the most, a volatile kind of attempt to do science. It would be interesting what the statistics in the papers you read were based on, ...
- 399
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