Why Your Brain Needs You to Get More Sleep
Picture this: you wake abruptly to your blaring alarm clock, and slam a hand on the snooze button. Instantly you regret staying up so late — your brain feels fuzzy and disoriented, and already you can tell you’ll need extra coffee today to help you stay alert. Judging by the time on the clock, it appears you got about four hours of sleep. But your body can handle that. Can’t it?
This is the third night in a row you’ve gotten so little sleep, and on top of that, you’ve been having some crazy dreams. But you brush them aside and trudge off to get your cup o’ Joe and wearily start your day.
Sound familiar? Too many of us are in the habit of not making sleep a priority, but the truth is that it can take a pretty bad toll on our health. This is especially true for our brains, and what goes on up there while we’re sleeping.
As it turns out, what we call ‘dreaming’ during sleep is actually a pretty important function for our brain. Just as our heart beating is essential to keeping our body alive, our brain needs downtime to keep us healthy and functioning properly, whether we’re aware of its processes or not.
Some of these processes occur while we’re conscious, but a lot of essential brain activity actually happens while we’re asleep, when the rest of the body temporarily slows down.
And if you think you’re one of those people who goes right to sleep and your mind stays blank all night, think again. Everybody has dreams, even if they don’t remember them. And here’s why.
So - does dreaming serve a purpose in the brain?
Yes! Although to many people, dreams may seem like scattered images that don’t tend to make sense when recalled (if recalled), it turns out they do in fact serve a very important purpose in keeping us sane.
Dreaming is an essential function of the brain that provides an outlet for memory processing, keeping emotions under control, and making sense of experiences.
For the past several decades, brain activity during sleep has been the subject of many questions and research studies. The results that have emerged, and continue to be explored, are pretty different than previous views.
In some early civilizations, dreams were considered windows between mortals and gods, and some were even said to have prophetic powers! More widely known theories include that of psychologist Sigmund Freud, who believed dreams served as a means to experience repressed desires and were a possible look into “the hidden self”.
Now, with further technological advances, scientists have come up with a theory that dreams don’t necessarily mean anything. Rather, they are made up of images and fragmented information pulled from our memory, and from what we experience throughout the time when we’re awake. This theory is called “Activation Synthesis Hypothesis”.
“Dreams” as we call them, could be our brain’s way of trying to put it all together when we wake up. Humans have a desire to make sense of it all, so our brains try to do that for us.
Sleep Cycles
As most people know, the human body goes through several different sleep cycles throughout the night. These cycles are typically around ninety minutes long and consist of five different stages.
The first two stages are lighter sleep, the second two are deeper sleep during which brain waves become much slower, and then occurs the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stage, after which the cycle then repeats itself. It’s commonly believed that the only stage in which dreaming occurs is the REM state, and while dreaming may appear more intense and vivid in that stage, research has actually shown that dreams can occur in any of the other sleep stages as well.
Regardless of when they happen during the sleep cycle, dreams are important in the process our brain goes through understanding what goes on in our lives.
Memory Processing
The repeating of events in our minds during the night is not just a replaying of memories; it’s also memory processing. The brain takes that information, consolidates it, and processes the material gained for the future. In doing this, the mind is then better prepared when it wakes up to absorb more information during the day, and be fully aware of the events that are occurring around it. It’s your brain’s way of setting you up for success!
Along with memory processing, dreams have another similar function that has to do with emotions.
Consider a dream — even though whatever is happening in the dream is not real, the dreamer is still experiencing emotions as if it were real life. Dreaming of a certain experience and emotion helps the brain form a memory of it and process how the dreamer is feeling — essentially helping to process the emotion so that it’s not repressed.
Processing this is an important step because repressing negative emotions can often lead to worry and anxiety. This is one reason why sleep — and dreaming — is so vital for brain health. It has even been found that being severely deprived of REM sleep is increasingly correlated with having mental health disorders.
Biological Purpose
While dreams assist with memory processing and dealing with emotions, they could also serve a biological purpose. Specifically, nightmares may present frightening situations to stimulate our brain and therefore prepare us for scary encounters in real life. In a way, this could be a manner in which the brain is training itself how to react in dangerous situations.
Nightmares are typically more common among children, perhaps due to their vulnerability, but affect around 3% to 7% of the U.S. population.
Common causes of nightmares include stress, mental health disorders, anxiety, medication, irregular sleep, and PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).
Everyone Dreams
It’s a common misconception that some people don’t dream at all. But the truth is that everybody dreams. Yes, everybody. Though it’s true that many people do not remember their dreams, their brains still go through the same process while they’re asleep — filtering and storing information, and therefore doing what they can to remain mentally healthy.
There’s still a lot we don’t know about why some people remember their dreams while others don’t. One thing that’s clear, however, is that people tend to remember their dreams more often when woken up during, or right after the dream occurred.
Similarly, a study also found that people who were typically awakened more easily and often during the night were more likely to recall their dreams, while those who slept soundly and weren’t easily woken up were less likely to remember.
The brain is a complex organ, and we know it works most smoothly when it’s given time to process.
Without getting enough time to rest and process information and images obtained during the day, our brains struggle to function effectively. This can leave us feeling overwhelmed and slower to react.
Hence, feeling fuzzy and disoriented.
Dreaming is an important function because it allows us to process memory, deal with emotions, and understand our experiences in order to be better prepared for the future. Whether they’re nightmarish or sweet, the process of dreaming is a mechanism that keeps the brain active and healthy, and shouldn’t be discounted!
Next time you want to skip out on sleep, remember that getting enough rest is necessary for your brain, and allowing that essential organ to slow down and do its thing will help you learn better, process faster, and feel healthier and happier overall.
So tonight when you climb into bed (early!) — set your alarm, close your eyes, and let your brain get to work.
