by Bridget Webber

Created on: February 20, 2009   Last Updated: March 19, 2009

Recent sleep studies show us far more than we ever thought possible about our dreams. By looking at which parts of our brains we use during our sleep we can see, not only when our brain is actively producing dreams, but also what type of dreams we are having.

Scientists have discovered that particular parts of our brain show energetic activity, which can be monitored via a scan, when we are accessing certain emotions. This happens in both waking life and during our dreams. We now understand that we don't just dream during R E M sleep, which refers to rapid eye movement, as once suggested but during other stages of sleep too.

Although we may have many different kinds of dreams the surprising finding is that we are more likely to have anxiety producing dreams than any other. Sleep specialists are not alarmed by this news though, as they believe that when we dream we are very often practicing stressful scenarios in our brains. The thoughts on this subject are that we are learning strategies and going through various outcomes in order to teach ourselves how best to survive in every day life.

The idea that our dreams are not random doesn't stop there. Not only do we practice coping with possible fearful situations but we may learn in other ways in our sleep too. By waking people up when they are seen to be dreaming during sleep studies it has been found that some dreams delve into our past knowledge, and compare this to recent knowledge. Thus our understanding of life can increase as we sleep as our knowledge base is increased and refined while we slumber.

Very often our dreams stem from difficulties which we need to find out how to overcome. It may be that we are learning something new during the day and have come upon what seems to be a dead end in our learning process, where we cant step into the next phase of learning easily.

When this happens our brains often seek the answer to our problems as we sleep, by producing dreams which link together information and test out how to get over our learning hurdle.

Some people find that they can program their minds to work on a particular problem. To do this they concentrate on the difficulty that they have been experiencing just before they shut their eyes to go to sleep, and literally ask their brains to send them an answer to their problem via their dreams.

They then write down their dreams in a diary that they keep by their bed. If you want to carry out such an experiment then you can set an alarm clock to wake you up every now and then during the night, as this is the way you will be best able to connect with your dreams and remember them.

If this isn't a practical idea for you then you can keep a dream diary by your bed to write down anything about your dreams that you remember first thing in the morning.

Knowing that our dreams are meaningful and have a purpose can help us to realise the relevance of sleep. Apparently we don't physically need to sleep! Up until recently why we do so has foxed medical science. Now we understand that we sleep mainly to dream and that this is all part of our survival plan to continue growing and learning.

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