We spend much of our lives sleeping, immersed in this universe of dream and suggestion. In addition, much of the material we produce is neglected Why does this happen?Why do we forget some of our dreams?
It doesn’t matter that these experiences are incredibly intense and almost vivid; as soon as we wake up, every image escapes us, every fragment and memory goes out like a smoke subjected to a stream of air.
- The most impressive thing is that.
- For a brief moment.
- We feel that if we try a little harder.
- We could find those memories.
- Now there is no point in focusing.
- Because all we have left is the emotional impression of the dream itself or.
- If necessary.
- The nightmare.
William Shakespeare said that people are made of the same material that weeds dreams. It is true; behind this poetic image, there is an undeniable truth.
The act of dreaming is a suggestive combination of mental processes that include our memories, our experiences and, in turn, brushstrokes of creativity, surrealism and fantasy. Humans also have these fabulous ingredients.
We cannot deny that we would love to remember every dream, and the reason lies in the classic belief that, by recovering every image, word, sensation and event that has occurred in this dream tissue, perhaps we could get to know each other better. little better.
“The main function of dreams is to try to restore our psychological balance. “Carl Jung?
There are those who have the curious virtue of remembering many of their dreams. They are people who do not hesitate to share these experiences with others, always looking for symbolisms and interesting interpretations.
Others, on the other hand, rarely remember anything about the world of their dreams; they are the ones who do not hesitate to say that they “never dream. “
However, we must consider that we all dream; dreaming allows us this deep and restorative rest essential to our health.
In addition, the brain needs this process to establish learning, eliminate data that is not in use to us and perform metabolic tasks to promote a good balance, that is, it performs a kind of “cleaning task”.
So, as the experts say, if we live 90 years, we will spend about 30 sleeping, 22 immersed in a deep sleep and 7 dreaming; However, these seven years, we will remember nothing. so unproductive in your content?
When we fall asleep, not all regions of the brain “disconnect. “We know that there are incredibly active areas, and one of them, which takes a long time to reduce its activity at rest, is the hippocampus. This area is linked to our memory and is responsible for performing crucial tasks during our sleep.
What it does is basically transmit the relevant information stored in short-term memory in the field of long-term memory. The hippocampus is, so to speak, focused on very specific tasks.
These tasks prevent you from being aware of our dream world, in fact, he doesn’t see it as important. His work at the moment is based on the consolidation of learnings and memories.
He is not very interested in what happens in our dreams, as several studies stand out, such as that conducted by Thomas Andrillon, neuroscientist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, where it can be seen on MRI that the hippocampus sends information to the cortex, but does not receive it in turn.
Sometimes you can take and record something, an image, a feeling or a brief scene, this probability increases if you wake up after sleep, in these situations it has been shown that the memory of this dream experience lasts only one or two minutes. . We quickly forgot.
There is a second reason why we forget some of our dreams, this theory (complementary to the previous one) focuses on two very specific neurotransmitters: acetylcholine and adrenaline, it is interesting to know that when we fall asleep, these two substances significantly reduce their levels in our brain.
This results in a lower ability to set memories, however, there is even more. It has been shown that when we enter the REM phase, when we cross the threshold of dreams to immerse ourselves in your kingdom, Acetylcholine suddenly increases, but not the adrenaline.
Therefore, in order for us to remember what is happening in this dream tissue, we must have high levels of two neurotransmitters, there is no point in having one.
We already know that there are two reasons why we forget some of our dreams: the hippocampus and neurotransmitters, such as adrenaline and acetylcholine, make it difficult to establish memories while we sleep.
However, subject matter experts, such as sleep researcher Ernest Hartmann, professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine, point out that there is another reason to forget.
The brain does not consider dreams important, it does not see any use in them. When we remember them, it’s for a very remarkable reason: they have an emotional component, the more intense their story is and the more coherent their story, the more likely they are to remember it.
In conclusion, dreams remain an enigma that always attracts us, Freud and Carl Jung considered them indispensable to know the human being better, however, the brain itself rejects them and prevents us from remembering them, for him, curiously, dreams are not as relevant as they can be to us.