Hey there viewers!
All of us have dreams and some of us dream more frequently than others.
As you physically power down at night, your brain and imagination run wild.
Dreams can be enchanting, exciting and even scary.
They can wake us up or give us a great story to tell in the morning.
But have you ever thought about what happens to your body while you are sleeping?
If yes, keep watching today’s video because we will be telling you what happens to your
body while you are dreaming.
From your body twitching, having a faster heart rate, your brain cleaning itself out,
being active to experiencing sleep paralysis and more, watch till the end to learn about
all of them.
You Twitch: There are phases to falling asleep.
During the first phase, you're somewhere between awake and asleep.
Your eyes start to move back and forth, as your body prepares for a good night's rest.
Even though your muscles are relaxing, you might experience a twitch, otherwise called
a hypnic jerk.
You might be saying, "No, I've never experienced that!"
Don't be so sure.
Have you ever felt like you were falling while you slept?
Well, that's a hypnic jerk.
It can result in eye twitching, jerks or even that scary falling feeling.
Your Body Gets the Rest It Deserves: After Phase One, you move into Phase Two of your
sleep cycle.
Your body temperature drops and you go off into that sweet world of sleep.
While in this stage, your brain function is reduced and your blood pressure slows down
as well.
The reason is your heart and vascular systems are getting a break to recharge while you
doze off.
Our bodies know that we need to recharge for the next day.
With this phase your body finally gets the much deserved rest it needs, especially when
you're dreaming.
Enjoying this list so far?
Well, keep watching because there’s a lot of more good stuff coming up, but before moving
on, don’t forget to subscribe to our channel for more amazing videos like this and hit
the bell icon so that you don’t miss any updates!
Everything But Your Eyes Are Temporarily Paralyzed: It all starts with the brain stem, which flips
you into sleep mode.
Once you hit the rapid eye movement or REM stage, it shuts off muscle movement.
Everything but your eyes is temporarily paralyzed.
Meanwhile, your brain stem's nerve cells may fire erratically.
Some experts believe dreaming happens when the thinking part of the brain tries to make
sense of these signals.
Your Brain Cleans Itself: So, while you may think your brain switches off when you go
to sleep, it is actually highly active for part of the night.
It is almost as active during REM sleep as when you are awake!
During this time, it is thought that your brain also works hard to clean itself up.
According to research, we sleep to allow time to clear away toxic byproducts that would
otherwise pile up and cause problems, like the trademark plaques of Alzheimer’s disease.
That’s why it’s vitally important that you have a good quality of sleep.
Your Limbic System Is Highly Active: The limbic system is a relatively primitive part of the
brain where memories and emotions are processed.
It is made up of the amygdala, hippocampus and cingulate gyrus.
During REM sleep, this part of your brain is highly active.
In our dreams, we often see familiar things in strange settings or jumbled imagery.
Interestingly, the part of the brain that deals with logic and self-control, the prefrontal
cortex is a lot less active during REM sleep.
This could explain why our dreams often seem so illogical and disorganised.
You May Experience Sleep Paralysis: During REM sleep, your muscles become temporarily
paralysed.
Sleep paralysis can usually occur either when you are falling asleep or when waking up.
This is when you are passing between stages of being asleep and awake.
People who experience this are consciously awake but unable to move or speak, and some
find it hard to breathe.
Additionally, people often report hallucinations, which could be a continuation of their dream.
It can be a frightening experience that can last for a few seconds or a few minutes.
Sleep paralysis is not uncommon.
In fact, it is reported that up to 4 in 10 people experience the condition.
It can be caused by many different things including lack of sleep, a change in sleep
schedule or irregular sleeping pattern and certain medications.
Your Heart Speeds Up: We’ve already mentioned that, for the most part, you can't move your
muscles when you're sleeping, right?
Your breathing slows down, your limbs start to feel heavy, and your eyes are usually closed.
In other words, you're relaxed.
Well, even though your body feels rested, your heart is still going quite fast.
According to research, your heart rate can actually speed up while you sleep.
Researchers have been surprised to find that the relationships between the heart and other
organs during sleep were different from an awakened state.
When you're awake, if your breathing increases, your heart rate increases.
But when you're asleep, it's the opposite.
If your breathing decreases, your heart rate might increase and vice versa.
You’re Getting Therapy: When you dream, your body is relaxed but your mind is still
active.
What's your mind doing while you dream?
Helping you fix your emotional problems, of course.
The best way to think about dreaming is that it's a natural process that deals with problems
that occur during the day.
Memories are used in dreams.
Sometimes, the images you see in your dreams are familiar in a way.
For example, maybe you have a problem with flying.
You might dream about being in the air.
Your dream goes and looks for associations with the past to try to solve these problems.
So the problems you see in your dreams are personal things like your memories and associations.
And these associations have real meaning.
Your dreams are a way of working out any negative thoughts or emotional distress you might have.
You're basically getting therapy, but for free.
Your Brain is Thinking: As we mentioned earlier, your brain doesn't actually sleep when you
do.
On the contrary, your brain is wide awake.
It's making decisions and processing information, all while you're asleep.
A recent study helped prove this idea.
Participants were given verbal words to categorize.
They were asked to press a left or right button for each word.
Left, words that referred to animals.
Right, words that referred to objects.
At first, participants were awake.
It wasn't until they fell asleep that researchers saw their brains still categorizing the words
they heard.
Of course, the participants weren't actually pressing a button — they were asleep.
However, their brains weren't.
Monitoring devices showed that even though the participants were asleep, their brains
were actively preparing the motor function needed to press the left or right button,
depending on the word.
So, not only did they process complex information while being completely asleep, but they did
it unconsciously.
So, in case you ever wondered if your brain shuts down when you do — it doesn't.
So, why exactly do we dream?
Although science knows what dreams are, it is still not known exactly why we dream, although
plenty of theories exist.
Dreams are patterns of sensory information that occur when your brain is in a resting
state, or asleep.
It is generally assumed that dreams only occur during rapid eye movement or REM sleep.
But studies have shown that they can also happen outside of REM.
Research from sleep studies, shows that REM-related dreams tend to be more fantastical, more colourful
and vivid whereas non REM dreams are more concrete and usually characterized in black
and white.
Recent studies on dreams show that during a dream and in particular a REM-related dream
the emotional centre of the brain is highly active whereas the logical rational centre
of the brain is slowed.
This can help explain why these dreams are more emotive and surreal.
Evolutionary theory suggests the purpose of a dream is to learn, in a safe way, how to
deal with challenging or threatening situations.
Whereas the memory consolidation theory suggests that dreams are a byproduct of reorganizing
memory in response to what has been learned throughout the day.
Both theories have at least one thing in common – during times of stress and anxiety we
either dream more or remember our dreams more often, as a way of coping with challenging
circumstances and new information.
This is also in line with another theory of dreaming – the mood regulatory function
of dreams theory, where the function of dreams is to problem-solve emotional issues.
Is it true that people who are stressed dream more?
While there is no evidence that we dream more when we are stressed, research shows we are
more likely to remember our dreams because our sleep is poorer and we tend to wake in
the night more frequently.
Studies show that dreams of people with insomnia which is a disorder largely characterised
by stress, contain more negative emotion and are more focused on the self, in a negative
light.
Also, the dreams of people with insomnia tend to focus on current life stressors, anxieties
and can leave an individual with a low mood the following day.
Outside of insomnia, research has found that people who are depressed, appear to dream
differently compared to those who are not depressed.
They rate their dreams as more unpleasant.
How often do you dream?
Do you remember your dreams once you’re up?
Let us know in the comments section below!