Dreams
Dreams are pictures, sounds and feelings that happen during sleep. In the course of history people have had many explanations for dreams. In ancient Greece dreaming was thought to be a kind of contact with the gods. Sometimes they were regarded as signs of what may happen in the future.
Our sleep is divided into five stages. In the first stage we do not sleep very deeply and we wake up easily. During the following stages our sleep gets deeper and deeper. After the fourth stage REM ( Rapid Eye Movement) sleep begins. During this phase our heart rate and breathing gets faster. Blood pressure goes up and the brain starts to work but the body does not. That is why we don’t act out our dreams because the body is inactive. Most dreaming occurs in this phase. There can be up to seven such REM phases in one night.
Everyone dreams. If you think that you never dream, you are wrong. Most of the time we cannot remember our dreams. Theorists say that we dream mostly about the thoughts and wishes that we repress. Others say that if dreaming is not so intense it is difficult to remember them anyway. Another reason may be that dreams are never the same, they have to be repeated in order for us to remember them.
Even blind people dream. They may see images of events that they have experienced before they became blind. On the other hand a person who was born blind does not see pictures in dreams, but they can hear, smell and taste in them.
People often have the same dreams over and over again. They may be events in your life that have caused problems which you have not solved yet. Nightmares are dreams that are so terrible that you usually wake up. There is medical treatment for nightmares. You can go to a therapists who tries to find out why you have nightmares and how to deal with them.