“THE IMPORTANCE OF DREAMING’
Date/Time
Date(s) - June 25, 2020 - Thursday
6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Since REM sleep was discovered in 1953, there have been numerous theories put forth concerning dreams– what causes dreams, the need for dreams, the importance of dreams, etc. The speculation and study continues to the present; however, there are a few definite things we know about the dream world. All members of the mammal kingdom experience REM sleep.REM sleep time occurs in the first stage of sleep and occupies from 20 to 25 per cent of a normal adult’s sleeping time and over 50 per cent of a baby’s sleeping time. Thus, we spend about two hours a night dreaming. The amount of REM sleep cannot be increased by manipulating external circumstances. This means that dreaming is more connected to subjective than objective reality. Although most adults remember few of their dreams, all of us dream nightly. People deprived of REM sleep exhibit signs of severe mental psychosis within 36 to 48 hours. People have been known to develop psychotic hallucinations and delusions.
REM sleep benefits our entire mental functioning. I once saw a Star Trek episode in which the crew was not allowed to have dreams—the result was that everyone’s brain started to deteriorate. That is actually what would happen to us if we didn’t dream. REM sleep provides rest and recovery periods for the part of the brain that regulates attention, memory and mood. During this period, our memories are updated as we integrate new experiences into our memory banks in an emotionally relevant way. The average adult dreams from three to five times during eight hours of sleep. The dreams occur roughly every 90 to 100 minutes and last from 5 to 30 minutes each.
. Unresolved conflicts, concerns about performance, and feelings about people and situations are played out in the dream world. Dreaming seems to provide a means of releasing tension and anxieties that we unconsciously suppress during our waking lives. It is interesting to note that many terminal cancer patients cannot remember their dreams. Since cancer is often linked to repression of feelings, it seems that even the dream’s information is repressed. It is much healthier to express the content of the dreams rather than to repress them. In the process of becoming whole, dreams of violence, murder, even death, are all ways in which our subconscious is allowing a milieu of thoughts, feelings and impressions to escape our busy minds. Dreams give us release from our inner conflicts and insight into our personal potential and promise.
Learn about the imporance of Dreaming for you in this free Zoom class June 25 6:30 MST Zoom link https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82770132001?pwd=VzMxbUZ6aXlnUG9TWkdMb3htTmY0QT09 Password 382217
