Science on Dreams

1. Firing Neurons

2. Information Storage

3. Symbology

4. Anxiety

This theory suggests dreaming is just our brain trying to make sense of random neurons firing. “We have neural activity all the time,” said Fayard. “So one theory is that it’s meaningless, just noise.” As humans, our instinct is to make sense of everything. So if there is activity our brains will search for an explanation.

This theory is the most popular with the science community. It explains that we are consolidating information. According to Dr. Wight, when we are sleeping our brain is taking the days events and turning them into brain tissue. That’s one reason we have poor memory when we are sleep deprived. More evidence for this is that a baby spends more time in REM then an adult. When we are babies we are taking in a whole new world of information. Adults are still learning, but not to the same extent as a baby.

DreamMoods.com will tell you what each symbol means specifically. However, these theories are as reliable as information you would get from a psychic or a palm reader.

There is a theory called “Forer” that explains that we tend to believe general, random feedback rather then specific, accurate feedback. According to Dr. Fayard palm readers and psychics use this to make their predictions. “It’s all a hoax,” said Fayard. “They are actually just very good at psychology.”

In Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams dream symbology is related back to our hidden sexual aggressive urges. However, like many of Freud’s theories, there science doesn’t have any evidence to support this.

DreamMoods.com will point most dream symbology towards anxiety. To an extent, science agrees.

- Dr. Randall Wight

What science has to say about these 4 theories on dreams and dreaming.

Dr. Wight explained that scientists have actually been able to observe rat brains. They teach rats a maze during the day. When they observe the rat’s brain during sleep they see the same brain patterns lighting up. The rat is replaying the maze during the non-REM phase of sleep. This shows us that what we have done during the day is played in our brain during sleep. So if we have a stressful day, that could cause us to have a stressful night.