You realize you’re falling off a cliff, screaming and paranoid. That’s when you wake up sweating everywhere, like a bucket of water got tossed on you and drenched you while sleeping because you were scared you could have died. You’re left wondering why you had that horrible so-called dream without even knowing why you even dreamed that.
You’re going to learn all about types of dreams and what makes them accrue. Some types of dreams are lucid dreams, vivid dreams, and more.
What are dreams/Why we have them
Taylor Bennett mentioned that the dreams that we have are dreams mixed with thoughts, feelings, and images that happen in our minds when we sleep. She also mentioned that we might have dreams because of different feelings, like emotion-processing. People think that happens because dreams are trying to make us confront our emotions so we can overpass that feeling we have. Other reasons for dreams we have would be to prepare us for any threat, which would be called a nightmare like getting kidnaped, drowning, or being cheated on. Having these dreams makes us think about how we would handle those kinds of situations in case it happened. Lastly, dreams help us with memory storage by helping us store important memories and what we learned throughout the day.
What is REM
The Cleveland Clinic explained that REM is a stage of your sleep where lots of dreams happen. The name comes from “Rapid Eye Movement,” which happens with your eyes behind your eyelid when you are dreaming. Brandon Peters,MD also said that if you do not have REM while you dream it will mean that once you wake up you won’t be able to remember what you dreamed.
Vivid dreams
Something mentioned by Cirino,Bonks, and The Healthline editorial team is that one type of dream can be because of your memory, which would be called a vivid dream, that is strong feelings about something in your life that has happened which is caused because of sleeping issues or sleeping disorders.
Vivid dreams can be either positive or negative. Heavy dreaming can accrue during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. REM sleep can happen every 90 minutes during a night and could last 20 or to 25 minutes that night. When you have a vivid dream you can usually still remember them when you wake up.
Lucid dreams
Wonder what lucid dreams are? Kris Martins and Stephanie Booth explained that lucid dreams are when you know you’re dreaming while you’re asleep. Lucid dreams are something called a ‘’hybrid’’ state in which you are fully awake but also a bit asleep. Neuroscientists don’t know why it occurs but some of the studies found physical differences in people who have lucid dreams. Lucid dreams are both good and bad. Some of the benefits of having lucid dreams is that it would help with your nightmares. You can also learn how to confront scary things that you see in your dreams as well as controlling what will happen next in your dream. There are no studies that actually say that it is harmful but there are things that can happen because of lucid dreams that you have, like poor sleep quality, sleep paralysis, confusion, and hallucination.
Nightmares
Harvard University said that nightmares are mostly caused because of bad aspects of your life or because of your health like stress, anxiety, irregular sleep medications, and mental health disorders (such as PTSD). You can get nightmares while having rapid eye movement, meaning that when you are asleep and your eyes are moving fast which can happen halfway through your slumber (light sleep). When you are getting close to waking up these dreams are often terrifying images and they are more likely to be remembered once you wake up.
Night terrors
Something different written by Harvard University mentioned there is also a kind of sleep that can happen when you pass from a sleep phrase to another and can be more tense then nightmare but you won’t be able to remember it once you wake up from it. Night terrors are not basically dreams but are scary reactions that happen when you pass from one sleep phrase to another. Night terrors usually happen two to three hours after you start sleeping when no-REM changes to REM.
All these kinds of dreams can happen anytime you sleep but some can also be signs of what you’re struggling with, like anxiety or other things, but in all they’re all okay to have, even if you don’t remember them or they scared you badly. Knowing what kind of dream you have is important because it might help you with trying to prevent the dreams or identify what caused it.
