Arushi Week 15 - Dreams
Ever woken up halfway through an amazing dream that you just don’t want to stop by any means? It’s such a horrible feeling, especially when dream reality is better than first period AP Spanish reality. Sometimes I just want to continue living in that dream. If I can’t sleep and play out the rest of the story, I’d appreciate at least being able to think about it as I get through my morning routine. But whenever I try to do so, I just can’t.
It’s like as the minutes tick by since I’ve woken up, I just can’t seem to remember the specifics of my dreams. Sure I’ll be able to name any of the star characters of it, but definitely none of the details. At first, I used to think that this was just on me: I probably just have horrible memory. But after spending some time figuring out why this happens, I realized that there’s actually psychology to this strange forgetfulness.
The most substantial factor behind forgetting a vivid dream is the absence of the compound norepinephrine in our cerebral cortexes. Norepinephrine is responsible for memory recall, a purpose that the cerebral cortex is also central to. When we dream, our brain depends on a very teeter-y totter-y balance between focused thought and wandering perception. As soon as we wake up, our visual processing immediately tips towards focused thought and the connections we start making have to do with our immediate surroundings. Neural pathways carrying information about our dreams to be stored in the cerebral cortex are, in basic terms, instead rerouted and reconfigured to store what we are experiencing as we wake up. This is why we aren’t able to remember our dreams down to the T.
I liked how you started off your blog with a feeling that we all share: the desire to re-experience or continue a nice dream. I have experienced this feeling several times, especially on school days, when I would rather dream than get ready for school. I find the idea that we can live life through dreams so interesting and it feels so absurd that our minds are effectively tricked while sleeping into believing that we are experiencing reality. This thought makes me wonder what the true definition of reality is. Is reality simply what our mind believes is reality? In that case, aren’t dreams technically reality when we get up? I appreciated how you formulated this topic, one that is relevant to all of us, to an interesting psychology lesson. Like you, I also thought that my tendency to forget my dreams right after waking up was just a problem with me, and it is great that we have a scientific explanation for why it happens with all people. There are so many mysteries with dreams, and I hope that neuroscientists come up with more findings about them in the years to come. Overall, I enjoyed reading your blog and I liked how you connected dreams to memory.
ReplyDeleteHey Arushi! I am so glad you wrote about this since I often think about why I can remember some dreams and not others. It is pretty interesting that there is a brain chemistry aspect to this phenomenon that has to do with the absence of the compound norepinephrine. It makes me wonder about other seemingly unbelievable biological phenomena that science can easily explain. Also, I wonder if remembering a dream has anything to do with disturbing your sleep cycle by waking up in the middle of the night. I wonder if watching tv or looking at screens before sleeping also cause a similar effect. Dream and sleep science are very interesting topics and your blog has piqued my curiosity! Maybe I will have to do some outside research afterward to get answers to all my questions!
ReplyDeleteI love the three paragraph format of your blog because though it is simple, it is packed with information in an organized way. Each paragraph is mid-sized and easy to read as well. The image breaking up the writing makes the blog more digesstable as well. Overall, you have great writing skills and I love the topics you choose to write about every week! I look forward to another interesting blog next week!
Hi Arushi! From the very first sentence, I completely related with this blog.Just this morning in fact, I woke up from a dream that I probably could not recall back to you now. The most annoying part is, often times, I'll remember that it was a good dream, just not what that dream was. I especially found it interesting how you mentioned this "dream reality" being better than the one we have to face every day as soon as we get out of bed. I have often wondered the scientific reason for forgetting these dreams, so this was definitely informative as to why I am unable to remember the specific details of a dream. Regardless, it is intriguing how much importance we as people place on our dreams despite them seeming to be so insignificant. Overall, I really enjoyed reading your blog, and can't wait for more!
ReplyDeleteI really resonate with your blog this week Arushi, especially since the only thing that I want more of these days is sleep. For me I struggle to get enough sleep, which is bad since I really cannot perform well enough in school each day because of this and it later affects me while I do homework since I feel really tired and feel the need to take a 4 hour nap to feel good enough to keep doing homework. These naps often lead me to having these really nice dreams about whatever; it might be about me passing a test or seeing a hot man (this only happens in dreams), or even just you know having fun with my friends; a luxury since it's really hard to find time in my busy school schedule to hang out with the people I want to hang out with the most. However, I always wake up to the most random things like my dad pulling into the driveway or whatever, so I usually have my dreams cut short, and that's really unpleasant especially since the reality that I come back to is filled with studying and homework and classwork and stress. I feel really sad every time it happens and hopefully next time I have a really nice dream I can see it till its end. Seriously, like I really need to be able to see it to its end because sometimes the man is really hot I swear like I'm not insane it's just that dreams make everything so so so much better than the real world.
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