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I stand in front of the elementary school of my childhood, near the doors of the entrance and the parking of the teachers. It's a sunny day and I'm surrounded by my classmates. We must be more than a hundred.
I have the vague feeling that some of my teachers are nearby, but my attention is focused on two adults, whom I do not recognize. The man I see in every detail – from the shine of his hair to the golden lenses of his sunglasses. He brandishes a kind of device that utters a piercing scream. I fall on my knees with my hands against my ears. My comrades are doing the same thing. The man laughs handily.
I made this dream almost 40 years ago, but I remember the details as if it was yesterday. Ask me to tell anything of a dream that I had done earlier this week, however, and I draw a blank. If I dreamed – and biology would probably suggest it to me – nothing lingered long enough to stay in my waking mind.
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For many of us, dreams are an almost intangible presence. If we are lucky, we can only remember the most ephemeral glimpse of the cold light of the day; Even those of us who can remember their past dreams with amazing details can wake up for a few days without almost remembering their dreams.
However, the reasons why this could happen are rare. Why we have dreams – and if we can remember – are both rooted in the biology of our sleeping bodies and our subconscious.
Sleep is more complicated than we thought. Rather than being a plateau of unconsciousness slipping in and out of sleep, our resting brains pass by a roller coaster of mental states, some parts being full of mental activity.
The dream is closely associated with the state of sleep called Rapid Eye Movement (REM). REM sleep is sometimes called desynchronous sleep because it can mimic some of the signs of awakening. In REM sleep, the eyes contract quickly, breathing and circulation change and the body enters a paralyzed state called atony. This occurs in waves of 90 minutes during sleep and it is at this stage that our brain tends to dream.
During the REM state, there is an additional flow of blood in the crucial parts of our brain: the cortex, which fulfills our dreams of content, and the limbic system, which processes our emotional state. While we are in this state of dreams sleep, they shoot with furious electric activity. However, the frontal lobes – which direct our critical faculties – are calm.
This means that we often blindly accept what is happening in this often absurd story until the moment of waking.
It is probably a good thing that the dream life and the revival life are completely different – Francesca Siclari
The problem is that the more confusing the images, the more difficult it is for us to capture them. Dreams with a lighter structure are much easier to memorize, said Deidre Barrett, professor of psychology and author, in a recent article on Gizmodo.
But there is a chemical component at work that is crucial to ensuring that these dreamy images are preserved: norepinephrine. Norepinephrine is a hormone that prepares the body and mind for action and is naturally lower in deep sleep.
Francesca Siclari, a doctor in sleep research at the Lausanne University Hospital, explains that there are clear definitions between our waking and sleeping states – and this is not a coincidence. "It's probably a good thing that the dream life and the revival life are completely different," she says.
"I think if you remember all the details you can do to wake up, you'd start confusing things with what's really going on in your real life."
She says that people with sleep disorders, such as narcolepsy, can struggle to tell the difference between waking and sleeping, which can leave them confused and embarrassed. "There are also people who remember their dreams too well, and they are really starting to export those memories into their day."
It is no coincidence that the dreams we remember most come from certain periods of our sleep cycle, affected by chemicals passing through our sleeping bodies. "Normally, we dream the most deeply in paradoxical sleep, when norepinephrine levels are low in the brain," she says.
We can find ourselves dreaming just before we wake up – but our morning routines actually prevent us from remembering the images. We are often awake from our sleep by an awakening that causes a spike in our levels of norepinephrine, which prevents us from clinging to our dreams.
"Someone who asks me why they can not remember their dreams is because they fall asleep too quickly, fall asleep too well and wake up with their awakening," says Robert Stickgold, dormant researcher at Harvard Medical School. "And their answer is usually," How did you know that? "
If you fall asleep deeply – as we all would like – you will not remember anything about this part of your sleep cycle – Robert Stickgold
According to Stickgold, many people remember their dreams after a period of sleep, when the mind starts wandering and that dreamlike images occur as people fall asleep and fall asleep, a process called "hypnagogic dream". Stickgold says that he conducted a study a few years ago during which students from a laboratory were woken up shortly after they entered this state. "Every one of them remembered having dreamed," he says.
"This step corresponds to the first five or ten minutes after you have fallen asleep. If you fall asleep deeply – as we all would like – you will not remember anything about this part of your sleep cycle. "
What if you wanted to remember your dreams? Obviously, every sleeper is different, but there are some general tips that could help you keep your dreams.
"Dreams are incredibly fragile when you wake up and we do not really have an answer to that," says Stickgold. "If you're the type of person who jumps out of bed and takes care of your day, you will not remember your dreams. When you sleep on a Saturday or Sunday morning, it's a great time to remember your dreams.
"What I tell my students in my classes is that when you wake up, try to stay still – do not even open your eyes. Try to "float" and at the same time, try to remember what was in your dream. What you do is that you review your dreams as you enter your waking state and remember them like any other memory. "
According to Stickgold, there are even safer ways to remember one's dreams. "I tell people to drink three big glasses of water before going to bed. Not three glasses of beer, because alcohol in an appetite suppressant REM, but water. You wake up three or four times in the night and you tend to wake up at the end of a paradoxical sleep cycle, which is natural. "
In addition, some dormant researchers offer another advice: you simply repeat that when you go to sleep, you want to remember your dreams, it means that you wake up to remember. Stickgold laughs. "It really works. If you do that, you will remember more dreams, it's like saying, "There is no place like home." It really works. "
This piece contains original artwork from Emmanuel Lafont, an artist of visual origin from Argentina who is currently working in Spain. He is represented by Yusto / Giner and by 6a Galeria D'art. His website is www.emmanuellafont.com.
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