A Dream Essay

Improved Essays
What is a dream?
The scientific definition of a dream is when there is a very small amount of brain activity and there is no sense of self-awareness. Most dreaming occurs in the REM (rapid eye movement) stage. This is the stage during which accelerated respiration and heart rate, muscle relaxation, and increased brain activity occurs. This stage is also called paradoxical sleep. During a dream, the dreamer experiences an incredibly lifelike ordeal, and the shutting down of the self-awareness causes them to encounter the dream in a first person point of view, generally without the knowledge of who they are and being unable to control the circumstances, and is also almost never aware that they are even dreaming. Dreams can last from five minutes
…show more content…
it comes from the word ‘oneiron’, meaning ‘dream’, and ‘logia’, meaning ‘the study of’. This word was first used in 1653, by Marquis d’Hervey de Saint Denys. The early Egyptians, not long before Christ’s birth, were incredibly analytical and curious as to the meanings of their dreams. They strongly believed in the prophecies from their gods, and were certain they were sent in the form of dreams. They believed in three bodies, the Shat, the corpse, the Ka, the living, and the Ba, the soul. It is thought that Ba may actually represent lucid dreaming, as he was shown in the picture writing of the Egyptians, hieroglyphics, as the dreamer in another …show more content…
A study conducted by Brighton Town University showed that eating food, especially unhealthy foods, too soon before sleeping almost always triggers nightmare-inducing brain waves. The researchers took 10 individuals of varying genders and weight and had each of them on the same sleep schedules, and consuming the exact same foods every single day for eight weeks, and gave each of them an unhealthy food just before bed. Not only did the subjects report rather vivid nightmares, but uncommonly rapid weight gain. After the eight weeks were over, the snacking on junk foods before bed was cut off. Suddenly, the extra weight dropped off in just a week or two, depending on the individual, and four saw a vast decrease in

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    Dreams In The Odyssey

    • 1809 Words
    • 8 Pages

    According to researcher Lee T. Pearcy (n.d.) at University College London, this type of dream was also believed to be “caused by external factors, such as gods, ghosts, or demons”. These beliefs also line up with Freud’s since they both thought that dreams were a result of external elements. The third aspect of Freud’s dream theory was that they are mostly based on hidden sexual desires. In the second century A.D, Artemidorus of Ephesus wrote a five-book dream interpretation guide (Attalus, 2015). In the first book, he spends…

    • 1809 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dream Deferred Five Essay

    • 625 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Dream Deferred Five is reminiscent of both the Civil Rights movement and the more recent Ferguson riots. The painting depicts a protest in front of a storefront and judging by the words on the protesters signs it is race related. The Diner in the painting is Woolworth’s, which is the sight of the North Carolina Greensboro sit-in. The depiction of a protest Woolworth’s is important not only because of the historical background but also because it represents the privileges African Americans were denied at the time. Woolworth’s, in this painting, represents the dream deferred the title refers to.…

    • 625 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Narcolepsy Term Papers

    • 441 Words
    • 2 Pages

    It is evident that the interpretation of dreams has changed throughout every culture. According to ancient civilizations dreams acted as a connection between this world and the gods. For example the Greeks and Romans believed that dream had the power to tell the future. Certain dreams meant that person had direction communication with the supernatural. Some of the most prominent dream interpretations can be seen in the Christian faith.…

    • 441 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    William Blake once said, “Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.” Sleep plays an important role in our everyday life cycle.…

    • 886 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Freud believed that nothing you do occurs by chance; every action and thought is motivated by your unconscious mind at some level. a. In order to live in a civilized society, you have a tendency to hold back your urges and hide your impulses. b. Because they can’t be expressed in a social setting, our urges and impulses are expressed in our unconscious mind, through our dreams. 2. For this reason, Freuds theory about dreams focused primarily on sexual desires and symbolism.…

    • 1734 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Bad Dreams Research Paper

    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages

    By studying dreams and what they mean it can be determined that dreams are sending messages because they are trying to help you with your problems. A. Dreams are your unconscious mind putting an image into your head (Turner). Scientists don’t know what to call dreams but author Penelope Lewis says dreams are “all perceptions, thoughts , or emotions experienced during sleep.…

    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Midnight Sleep Module 7

    • 503 Words
    • 3 Pages

    It is basically what happens when a person has low awareness of anything around them and begins to fantasize. Sleeping doesn’t guarantee that dreams will occur either. There is five different stages of sleep and they all vary in levels of awareness. Only around 20% of our time sleeping is actually spent dreaming.…

    • 503 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Broken Surely, I must be dreaming Thoughts of mine spinning out of control when you say "Can you talk ?" I did not think anything of it... at first I did not expect my heart to shatter into a million pieces, I did Not expect my throat to tighten or the breath to leave my lungs…

    • 188 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    (Nichols 1) Dreaming occurs 3-6 times every night and each dream lasts about 5-20 minutes. When dreamers are asleep they follow a ninety minute cycle, there are 5 stages of this cycle, two stages of light sleep, two stages of deep sleep, and one stage of rapid eye movement or REM. (Young 1) While dreaming your brain goes through recent memories and sorts them out, dreaming is not a necessity to your brain sorting through memories but it does help your brain (Young 1). This means that your brain is thinking about memories, and thoughts, and observations all at once while they are being sorted out and stored for later.…

    • 567 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Dreams, visions, and oracles have not always been the most reliable sources of information, yet time and time again it is these materials that have been used in order to understand the world and it’s relationship the humanity. All of these mystical sources of information have had a very heavy influence on how people of past civilizations have approached the events in their lives, and as such these sources have also become important tools used to interpret historical knowledge, for they provide insight into how certain cultures viewed the world around them. Dreams, visions, and oracles are either very specific, or very broad. They always relate to one distinct person, but the meaning can often be interpreted many different ways, or one concrete way that eventually…

    • 1561 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dreams are when the process of visualizing and thinking transfer into our deep thoughts and enter our REM state of sleep, so without the REM state, we would seemingly be unable to comprehend the random ‘files' entering our mind at any given moment during sleep. Without all of this going on, we may all go insane, due to the incapability to dream, and causing our thoughts and images to be cluttered and…

    • 833 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    What are dreams? Why do people experience them nearly every time they fall asleep? They have always been a topic of interest among scientists, consequently in the world of psychology. Moreover, they are raising awareness among general public as well. However, what if there is something more terrifying than a dream?…

    • 293 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dreams Research Papers

    • 1155 Words
    • 5 Pages

    (Nichols). Each of those dreams can “[last] between 5 to 20 minutes” each. (Nichols). Most of the content in a person's dream are somehow related to their actual life. “48% of people that feature in a dream are recognized by the person dreaming.”…

    • 1155 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I had a dream; there were three of them. In my dream, I was sitting in a car on a rocky and sandy dirt road with one friend in the front and three in the back of a Honda Accord. Behind me was three men; I was so scared and shaky I didn 't know what to do. The lights just flashed red, blue, and white behind me.…

    • 1006 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dreams come true I slowly waddled out of my bed and looked around to make sure I was still in my room. I always seem to wake up startled and frankly, a bit panicked after one of my adventurous dreams. Though I can say this one was different. It was a spur of mixed emotions and what seemed to be the realest dream i 've yet come to experience.…

    • 761 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays