Everyone needs sleep, and getting enough sleep helps us maintain a healthy and mental balance. But what happens when the things we rely on become the source of horror in our lives? And what exactly happened when we dreamed?
is really much stranger than we think - mainly because there is too much about sleep and dreams that still cannot be explained. From nightmare obstacles to the possibility of never waking up, many things that exist in dreams will keep us awake at night.
Next, take a look at the facts that make you feel the most creepy in the dream world.
Sleep paralysis will cause terrible hallucinations when people are unable to move
This is a very painful experience for patients with sleep paralysis. During sleep paralysis, patients will realize that they are experiencing muscle relaxation (muscle paralysis) but are powerless.
Usually, muscle laxity ends when you wake up and you won't even realize that you're going through this temporary paralysis. However, for people suffering from sleep paralysis, some problems arise in the process and they enter a state of mixed consciousness. These people will realize that they are paralyzed and will have hallucinations because their REM sleep cycle does not stop when they wake up.
The hallucination of sleep paralysis is divided into three categories, and they will make the patient feel very painful:
intruder hallucination, the patient feels dangerous in the room;
chest pressure (also known as lustful demon) hallucination, the patient feels suffocating, someone sits on their chest;
vestibular motor hallucination (V-M), the patient feels like a flying soul is out of body.
These hallucinations can occur simultaneously, so in particularly painful situations, one will feel as if one is sitting on their chest, suffocating them, while another invader is also in the room, trying to hurt them.
Strangely, the sense of presence that people see overhead or in the room varies by culture, which leads many to believe that this sense of presence is more than just an illusion. Moreover, sleep paralysis can occur to anyone.
When having nightmares, no one hears your screams or asks for help
We usually cannot be active while sleeping due to the relaxation during sleep. The only muscles that stay active in dreaming are our eyes and breathing muscles. Because of this, when we have nightmares, we can’t run around or scream like we see on movies and TV. So, if you are having a particularly terrible dream and hope someone can wake you up, then it is very likely that won't happen because the nightmare won't end until you wake up.
When we wake up, we may be more likely to recall nightmares than other dreams, because we pull ourselves out of REM sleep directly. "Once you sit up and scream, you're awakened and awakened from your dream," said Aneesa Das, MD, an assistant professor of internal medicine specializing in sleep medicine at Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center. Wake up directly from a nightmare, your memory of nightmare will be better than other non-scary dreams, because the latter won't scare you.
Unfortunately, there is no way to help people trapped in nightmare, after all, we can't know they are in nightmare.
Technically, we are all paralyzed in the rapid eye movement stage (REM), which is the most dream-filled stage of sleep
Have you ever wondered why our bodies stay in bed while running, jumping or doing other physical activities in our dreams? The answer is simple: When we dream, our muscles will temporarily paralyze. This is called muscle relaxation, but in fact the body is completely normal; dystonia is only an important part of helping humans get normal, standard sleep.
The combination of muscle relaxation and rapid eye movement sleep will lead to regular night sleep. During this period, even if a person dreams, he will not walk around because of dreaming. People who put dreams into practice may harm themselves and others, and if this happens frequently, they may be experiencing rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorders, such as sleepwalking.
Rapid eye movement sleep usually occurs about 90 minutes after you fall asleep. During this stage, your eyes move back and forth quickly, and your heartbeat and breathing speed up. Each continuous REM stage lasts longer than the previous stage. It is during this time that we dream, sometimes it is very strong, because certain areas of our brains are more active.
Due to temporary paralysis, we will not jump randomly during rapid eye movement sleep. People know that if the muscles are not slow during sleep, they will get up and eat, drive, or even do undescribable things when their brains are in sleep.
More than 100 originally healthy people from different communities in Southeast Asia died mysteriously in their sleep
In the 1970s and 1980s, many refugees from Cambodia , Laos and Vietnam began to arrive in the United States. There, many people begin to experience sleep paralysis and think it is caused by a supernatural cause. In fact, they might be right—suddenly, more than 100 healthy refugees died in their sleep.
Doctors call this phenomenon a sudden unknown nocturnal death syndrome (SUNDS). Scientists cannot fully explain the cause of death, nor can they completely explain the sudden stop of death. However, they believe that the deaths were caused.
Finally, the researchers concluded that belief in Yeling, coupled with sleep paralysis and possible heart disease, is the cause of death. Some studies have even linked sleep paralysis to hereditary arrhythmias. Matteo Vatta, assistant professor of cardiology at Baylor Medical College in Houston, said:
death occurs at night because people's heartbeats are weaker when they sleep.
Although it is possible to suffer from heart disease, their belief in paranormal seems to play a major role in their deaths for those who die from SUNDS.
Some theories believe that we forget most of our dreams in order to firmly grasp the reality
If you have ever regretted forgetting a dream, then you don’t have to do this - forgetting dreams may make us firmly stand on the basis of reality. If we still remember every detail of every dream, then we may lose our grasp of reality. Some chemicals in our brains prevent us from fully remembering our dreams. One of them is norepinephrine. This chemical prepares our bodies for action, and due to the relaxation phenomenon, we have lower norepinephrine levels when we sleep. So when we dream, the more norepinephrine we have, the more we can remember our dreams and vice versa.
Francesca Siclari, a sleep researcher at the University of Lausanne Hospital, believes that this is a very good thing in the end. She said:
Life in dreams is completely different from life in awake, which may be a good thing. I think if you remember every detail as you do in real life, then you start to confuse the dream with what actually happens in real life.
People with certain sleep disorders may feel confused when awake due to an imbalance of norepinephrine and other brain chemicals. This may lead them to question their reality, or even act according to untrue thoughts or experiences that have never happened. Needless to say, if they don't seek help, it can create very dangerous situations.
What is important is that no matter how much we want to know what happens in our dreams, our dreams still exist in the dream world.
research shows that dreams are mostly strange because the more logical part of our brain is inactive
Dreams usually have no practical significance because during sleep, various parts of our brain have stopped communicating with each other. One of the main parts that becomes inactive is the frontal lobe, which is responsible for handling our critical abilities such as awareness and logical decision-making.
Loss of frontal lobe activity may be the reason why people make various strange decisions in their dreams. In the real world, loss or damage to frontal lobe activity can lead to violence, depression and even dementia, so this inactivity may be the best thing that only happens when we sleep.
Some researchers suggest that strange dreams are good for mental health and can help people learn from their experiences.
Nicolas Deperrois is the leader of a study on dreams at the University of Bern. He said:
Dreams are strange, it is not surprising: this kind of weirdness has a purpose. Next time you dream crazy, maybe don't try to find a deeper meaning - your brain may just be organizing your experience.
Some studies show that nightmare is actually preparing for accidents in real life
People are usually not willing to have nightmares, but they may play a very practical role in our lives. A theory researchers have been studying suggests that nightmare may make people better prepared for unexpected situations in the real world.
The limbic system that regulates emotions remains active while we sleep. This is why we sometimes suffer such a great emotional impact after having a nervous dream. Researchers now find that experiencing fear and discomfort in dreams may reduce our arousal of fear in the real world.
Because our emotional reaction to the fear in dreams is the same as the fear in reality, our bodies cannot distinguish the difference. This means that when we encounter horrible or painful situations in reality, if our brains have already processed fear in dreams, we may be better at dealing with this situation emotionally.
Dreams may be considered a training to our future response and may potentially prepare us for the dangers in reality, said Lampros Perogamvros, the author of the study, from , , of the University of Geneva.
Nightmare disorder has greatly changed the daily life of patients
For some people, nightmare is not uncommon. Some people suffer from a sleep abnormality called nightmare disorder (sometimes dream anxiety disorder), in which case a person will have nightmares frequently. Researchers estimate that about 4% of adults suffer from the disease, which leads to long, painful, memorable dreams.
People with this disease will also be very painful when they are awake because they may constantly recall their disturbing dreams. They may also develop fear of sleep, increase anxiety, and even begin to lose control of reality.
Some patients with more serious illnesses will have multiple nightmares every night. Some believe that nightmare disorder can be traced back to traumatic experiences, drug use or withdrawal, or is particularly sensitive to negative experiences in a wakeful life.
The most common treatment for nightmares disorder is a treatment called "image therapy" (IRT) that can help people understand the usefulness of nightmares and practice relaxation techniques. There is no direct cure for this condition, but treatment has been shown to be partially helpful.
Scientists don't know why we dream
First of all, one of the most mysterious things about dreams is that researchers really don't know why dreams happen. On a basic level, dreams are defined as stories and images created by our brains while we sleep. There are many different theories about dreams, and these theories are often influenced by people's scientific, religious and/or spiritual beliefs. Some researchers say dreams don’t make any sense, while others say they help us process and learn about our own experiences.
Ancient culture usually interprets dreams as messages from gods, other realms and even the dead. And thanks to some dream-related research, we now know that if people are not allowed to dream (wake up before the REM cycle), they will feel more nervous, anxious, and even gain weight. It is safe to say that dreaming is very important to our health, even if we don’t know why we dream.
Some sleeping positions may cause nightmares more easily than other sleeping positions
Everyone likes sleeping positions, which may have a great impact when having nightmares. Several studies on the link between sleeping positions and nightmares concluded that there was a correlation between the two: These studies showed that people who lie on their left side were more likely to have nightmares than those who lie on their right side.
People who sleep on their backs are more likely to have nightmares than people who sleep on their right side.People who sleep on their stomachs often have stronger dreams, but they may not necessarily have nightmares.
However, many other factors can also affect our dreams, including the temperature of the room, our pajamas, and even music. We have the ability to hear various sounds in our sleep, so sometimes sounds or music will enter our brains when we dream. But researchers are still uncertain why our sleeping posture affects our dreams.
