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Dreams Ans Dreaming

Dreams and Dreaming

What exactly is a dream? Is it a story the evolves in the mind in a single flash of inspiration, moving from beginning to end in a few seconds? Or is there more to it than mere fantasy? Many researchers, both past and present, have given numerous definitions for what dreams are and how they can be interpreted. The most basic definition of dreams comes from Alan J. Hobson, who states that dreams are "a sequence of sensations, images, and thoughts that pass through the mind of a sleeping person via fanciful visions, fantasies or states of reverie" (1999, 15).
Since 1952, a concentrated effort in dream research has netted some concrete results which have allowed specific definitions about dreams and dreaming. In essence, dreaming is a psychophysiological (mind/body) process that can affect a person's mental and physical health. The prevailing notion, based on current research and scientific study, is that dreams "are our own inventions, born of a mind that remains fully active, with brain waves racing and the five sense perceiving as one slumbers in relative physical calm" (Gillespie, 2002, 202). Thus, according to Anthony Stevens, a dream is "a period of spontaneous brain activity usually lasting from five to forty minutes that occurs during sleep several times a night, usually at about ninety minute intervals" (2001, 25).
THE MECHANICS OF DREAMING
A 2000 study at the University of Michigan found that the human body's dreaming condition is much like the fight or flight response in waking life, which gears the body up to confront a threatening situation. Yet the brain simultaneously signals the spinal cord to hold the body completely rigid. Science is still attempting to exactly determine what
physical function dreaming has for humans, but since the 1950's, researchers have made remarkable advances in the study of sleep and dreams.
The cycles of sleep are a fairly new discovery, but in the years since researchers finally cracked the...