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  • 10) Threat Simulation

  • Dreaming may be an evolutionary technique that helped humanity survive by allowing us

  • to practice responses to threatening situations while we sleep. This would explain why our

  • dreams are often made up of events far more threatening than our waking lives.

  • Finnish scientist Antti Revonsuo has shown that while we are dreaming, the part of our

  • brain that determinesfight or flightis more active than usual.

  • In addition, the area of the brain that practices motor activity - such as running and punching

  • - is also extremely active, despite bodies being paralyzed during Rapid Eye Movement

  • (REM) sleep, the period when dreaming takes place.

  • 9) Dream Gender Differences

  • Studies have found that there are significant gender differences in dream content.

  • One study analyzed 100,000 people’s reported dreams and found that while men often dream

  • of cars, weapons & violence, women’s dreams center around familiar situations such as

  • home or the workplace.

  • Women's sexual dreams were likely to be of someone they knew in real life, whereas male

  • sex dreams tended to be about characters they’d invented.

  • This is assumed to be due to both environmental and biological gender differences, with male

  • testosterone thought to contribute to thoughts of aggression and sex that are played out

  • in dreams.

  • 8) Dream Déjà Vu

  • The feeling of a new situation being familiar, known as Déjà Vu, is a similar process to

  • what occurs during dreaming.

  • When dreaming about real places such as our home, it can often look like a completely

  • different house, but because of a feeling of familiarity that comes with the dream,

  • we know where the dream is taking place.

  • This is because dreaming, like déjà vu, is created by a network of memory traces that

  • can evoke the feeling of familiarity, allowing us to recognize a situation without a clear

  • memory or understanding of why.

  • Alternatively this sensation could be due to precognitive dreams: the experience of

  • living future events while in a dream state. Although more than 50% of people claim to

  • experience precognitive dreams, science has yet to prove this phenomenon.

  • 7) Do Animals Dream?

  • Most land mammals and birds have dreams.

  • While pet owners may have noticed their cats or dogs appearing to act out their dreams

  • in their sleep, scientists have determined that even rats have complex dreams and replay

  • events in the same way humans do.

  • Researchers got rats to perform specific tasks in a maze and found that this produced distinctive

  • patterns of brain activity. While the rats were sleeping, the exact same brain patterns

  • were reproduced, suggesting that the rats were dreaming of navigating the maze.

  • A similar observation has been made in Zebra Finches. An analysis of the order their brain

  • neurones fired while dreaming indicated that they were practicing birdsong in their sleep.

  • 6) Black & White Dreams

  • Reportedly 12% of sighted people dream exclusively in black and white.

  • Research by the University of Dundee has shown that the type of television watched in childhood

  • determines the color of dreams.

  • A study found that thousands of people over 55 who'd been raised watching black and white

  • television often dreamed in monochrome, while almost all people under 25 dream in color.

  • This suggests that there could be a critical period in childhood when watching films has

  • a big impact on the way dreams are formed.

  • 5) Dream-reading Machines

  • Japanese scientists are in the first stages of developingdream-reading machines’.

  • They developed a computer-learning algorithm that was able to match visualisations with

  • the corresponding brain activity.

  • By showing volunteers images and recording their responding brain activity, the scientists

  • were able to predict with a 60% accuracy the broad category of what their participants

  • were dreaming about - for example, whether it was a person or building.

  • Future benefits of these kinds of machines could include the ability to read the minds

  • of people unable to communicate, such as coma victims.

  • Although for now these machines are limited in the brain activity they can detect, future

  • studies may implant electrodes deep into the brains of subjects to enable a closer reading

  • of individual neutrons.

  • 4) Sleepwalking

  • Sleepwalking occurs when our body’s natural defense fails during deep sleep. Sufferers

  • can end up acting out their dreams, hurting themselves or others.

  • British man Brian Thomas was arrested for murder after strangling his wife to death

  • as she lay in bed with him. He claimed that he’d strangled her while dreaming she was

  • an intruder.

  • The murder charges were withdrawn when it was discovered that Mr. Thomas had a history

  • of suffering from sleepwalking and night terrors. The judge ruled that Mr Thomas couldn’t

  • be held responsible for his actions, as his mind wasn’t in control of his body at the

  • time of the attack.

  • 3) Musical Dreams

  • Beatles singer Paul McCartney reportedly wrote the band’s hit songYesterdayafter

  • hearing it in a dream.

  • Researchers at the University of Florence found that musicians dream of music more than

  • twice as much as non-musicians. The younger the musicians had learnt their craft, the

  • more frequent their musical dreams.

  • Almost half of the songs the musicians reported having dreamed were completely new to them.

  • McCartney's fellow Beatle John Lennon also performed a song he'd dreamed up while sleeping.

  • 1974 single Number 9 Dream even included made-up words he remembered from his dream.

  • 2) Cheese Dreams

  • It’s an urban myth that eating cheese at night causes nightmares. In fact the amino

  • acid tryptophan, which is found in cheese, is known to reduce stress and induce sleep.

  • However, a recent study did find that different types of cheese could affect the types of

  • dreams we experience.

  • Eating Stilton before bed was found to cause bizarre dreams, including talking soft toys.

  • Red Leicester creates nostalgic dreams, while participants that ate cheddar before sleep

  • dreamed about celebrities.

  • 1) Lucid Dreams

  • Lucid dreaming is when the dreamer is aware that they are in a dream state and can influence

  • what happens during it.

  • It is thought that anyone can learn and practice the ability to lucid dream, though those who

  • spend hours playing video games are more likely to be able to control their dreams, as both

  • activities require being in an artificial world.

  • Full lucid dreaming can benefit athletic performance. By practicing running during a lucid dream,

  • the neural pathways needed to run become strengthened, making the sport easier by morning.

10) Threat Simulation

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