There are five phases of sleep in a sleep cycle: Phases of sleepĭreams most likely happen during REM sleep. They are by nature difficult to study in a laboratory, but technology and new research techniques may help improve our understanding of dreams.

a psychological space where overwhelming, contradictory, or highly complex notions can be brought together by the dreaming ego, notions that would be unsettling while awake, serving the need for psychological balance and equilibrium.

a unique state of consciousness that incorporates experience of the present, processing of the past, and preparation for the future.

reflecting unconscious mental function in a psychoanalytic way.

cognitive simulation of real life experiences, as dreaming is a subsystem of the waking default network, the part of the mind active during daydreaming.

offline memory reprocessing, in which the brain consolidates learning and memory tasks and supports and records waking consciousness.

consolidating and processing information gathered during the dayįrom evidence and new research methodologies, researchers have speculated that dreaming serves the following functions:.

interpreting random signals from the brain and body during sleep.

representing unconscious desires and wishes.

Are dreams merely part of the sleep cycle, or do they serve some other purpose? There are several theories about why we dream. Dreams: Do they represent our unconsious desires?

Dream catcher baby bedding set