There are mornings when you might wake up and vividly recall every exact detail from a dream, whereas other times you might only remember vague details or nothing at all.
Research has revealed that dreaming occurs mostly during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the stage in which brain activity is similar to that of a waking brain, though the areas of the brain that transfer memories into long-term storage are rather deactivated. Because the short-term memory areas are active during REM sleep, one would need to wake up in that stage (which occurs approximately every 90 minutes and lengthens in duration as the night progresses) in order to remember whatever dream he or she was having.
Dreams do not always seem to make sense to those who do recall them and often leave them wondering why they dreamed what they did and whether or not those dreams have particular meaning in their lives. Dallas-area resident Arinda Cale said she believes that the thoughts and images that cross a person’s mind while sleeping are certainly significant.
“Whether you believe it’s your subconscious or angels sending you messages or it’s how your mind makes sense out of the things happening in your life, I think it’s a good practice to pay attention to your dreams,” she said. “One profound dream that has stuck with me for more than 20 years happened when I was going through my divorce. I was in our living room, and all of the exits from the room were filled with snakes. Snakes are a symbol for transformation. I woke up understanding that I was going to have to transform the way I was moving through my life to get out of that marriage. I took that message and ran with it.”
While not everyone might have such a clear understanding of a dream, some individuals, such as Dallas resident Nathaniel Medrano, believe that dreams can mean more than one might initially consider.
“I think, more often than not, dreams are triggered by subconscious thoughts or feelings or events happening in our daily lives,” he said. “The mere fact that this was brought to my mind has caused me to dream two nights in a row, and I don’t dream often. However, I do believe that some dreams can have no meaning, as they sometimes are completely random and unrelated to anything going on in my life—or I’m just not educated enough to understand the meaning.”
Some doctors have posited the notion that dreaming is somewhat of a collection of unified memories and represents valuable cognitive functioning. Dallas-area resident Nikki East said she is “kind of all over the place” in terms of her beliefs regarding dreams and the meanings behind them.
“I believe that the majority of our deja-vu moments stem from dreams we’ve had and simply don’t recall—psychic attributes, so to speak,” she said. “However, I also understand that dreams can generate from things going on in our lives, pulled from our subconscious at times. I believe that dreams that may seem wild and random could mean something—such as the dream of losing a tooth or teeth, which could imply feeling a loss of control or increased anxieties.”
There are certainly individuals, though, including Dallas resident Drew Mbiam, who do not read much into what their minds unexpectedly ponder throughout the night and believe that dreams are more open to interpretation by the individual having them.
“I think dreams are abstract and could have some meaning, but for the most part, it is what you make of it,” he said.
And aside from the scientific reasoning as to why people remember dreams sometimes and other times feel like their minds were completely blank throughout the night, Mbiam has his own theory.
“I think dreams are harder to remember because there’s not anything concrete to anchor them to in your conscious mind,” he said. “I think some dreams are memorable because there are concrete people, places, and things folks can map them to. But for the more abstract dreams, they fade as you wake up and become more conscious.”
Cale said she once read that individuals have several dreams each night and typically only remember the ones they have right before waking up. When she does have vivid recollections of what was going through her sleeping mind, you can bet that she’s going to try to find out the meanings behind them.
“I think of my dreams as messages, so I definitely research them,” she said.
Mbiam, on the other hand, said he typically does not try to figure out why he dreamed what he did when he remembers what happened in his mind while he was sleeping.
“Dreams are fun or interesting while they’re happening, but I try not to get too sucked into them,” he said.
There are plenty of answers a person might come across when asking the internet to interpret a dream, and while East might occasionally conduct such a search, she doesn’t necessarily invest much in trying to determine what a dream meant.
“I’ve been known to Google a dream here and there (like the dream I mentioned about losing teeth), but I don’t read too much into them,” she said. “There is enough to deal with in life when we’re awake, so there’s no sense in spending too much time on what’s going on when asleep.”
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