Is it just me, or within minutes of waking up- the dream I had just completely evaporates from my memory? Unless it’s a nightmare- those I often remember vividly. Especially, when the alarm on the phone rings, and while you grab it to turn it off, most of the time you end up scrolling on whatever social media platforms, news apps or anything. And then we really do forget what we were dreaming about less than maybe 20 minutes ago.
Let’s start from the scratch. Where do dreams come from? I mean sometimes I dream of bizarre things- that I probably have never even thought about on any subconscious level. There are a few reasons, which scientists can never seem to agree on:
- We dream to express and solve our problems
- It’s just our brain being super random and firing neurons around and doing basic brain maintenance
- If any of you have seen Inside Out, you’ll probably agree that it’s just our emotions playing a random movie while they catch a nap.
- Dreams help us sort through memories of the previous day, and basically, process all the information
Studies say that we see roughly 3 to 4 dreams every night in our REM cycle. And most of the time, even if we do remember, we only remember the last one- and if stats are too be believed we only remember like 5% of our dreams. So the 1/3rd of our life that we spend sleeping, we don’t even remember properly.
To improve dream awareness, Lauri Loewenberg, author of Dream on It: Unlock Your Dreams, Change Your Life says, that all it needs is time and attention. Within the first 90 seconds of waking up is the best time to remember your dreams, especially if you stay in the same position that you were sleeping in- basically, don’t move a muscle, and definitely, don’t grab your phone.
SWATINESS 