#18: Dreams - Part 1

03/28/22 • 15 min

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This week’s episode is the first in a new multi-part series all about dreams! Today, Matt focuses on the question of how your brain generates these things called dreams.

Matt starts with an unexpected statement: last night, when you were dreaming, you became psychotic. 5 things happen when you dream that justify his diagnosis: 1) you see things that aren’t there, 2) you believe things that could not be true, 3) you become confused about time, place, and person, 4) you have wildly fluctuating emotions, and 5) you wake up in the morning and forget most of this dream experience, amnesia. If you experience any of these symptoms while awake, you might seek psychological attention. Yet, dreaming is both a normal and, essential biological and psychological process.

Matt explains that REM sleep is not the only stage of sleep when we dream. However, the things that most of us call dreams, involving movement, emotions, past memories, and rich narrative, largely come from REM sleep.

Over the past 20 years, a new scientific view of REM sleep has given rise to an understanding of 3 basic questions regarding dreaming. 1) how does the brain create this neural activity called dreaming? 2) can we explain if dreams have their source in our experiences, or are they de novo experiences generated by the brain? 3) what is the function of REM sleep dreaming? The advent of brain-imaging machines allowed scientists like Matt to create beautiful 3D visualizations of people’s brains as they dreamt.

When the brain switches from deep non-REM sleep over to REM sleep, something remarkable happens: the brain erupts with spikes of activity in the MRI scans. Specifically, 4 areas of the brain fire up when dreaming starts during REM sleep: the visuospatial regions, the motor cortex, the hippocampus, and the amygdala. In contrast to all of these areas, one part of the brain does the opposite. The left and right sides of your prefrontal cortex becomes markedly deactivated during REM sleep. This is important because your prefrontal cortex controls logical reasoning. This is, in part, why dreams are often filled with movement, strong emotions, past memories, people, and experiences, yet are utterly irrational.

Finally, Matt reminds us of one last fact. When we are in REM sleep dreaming, the body is paralyzed, preventing us from acting out our bizarre dreams. Otherwise, we would put ourselves in danger and be popped out of the gene pool rather quickly!

Be sure to tune in for the rest of the series to uncover even more fascinating information about these things we call dreams.

Please note that Matt is not a medical doctor, and none of the content in this podcast should be considered medical advice in any way, shape, or form, nor prescriptive in any way.

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This week’s episode is the first in a new multi-part series all about dreams! Today, Matt focuses on the question of how your brain generates these things called dreams.

Be sure to tune in for the rest of the series to uncover even more fascinating information about these things we call dreams.

Please note that Matt is not a medical doctor, and none of the content in this podcast should be considered medical advice in any way, shape, or form, nor prescriptive in any way.

Previous Episode

#17: Sleep is Bloody Remarkable #1

Matt has a special announcement this week: a new recurring type of episode called, ‘Sleep is Bloody Remarkable’. This series of episodes will share fascinating facts about sleep that will blow your mind! In the premier episode, Matt focuses on something truly (bloody) remarkable: half-brain sleep, or unihemispheric sleep.
Unihemispheric sleep is the phenomenon of when one hemisphere of the brain is awake, while the other sleeps. Matt goes on to discuss how the two sides of the brain rotate their sleep roles, such that after a set period of time, the side that got to undergo sleep first wakes, so that the other half of the brain gets its needed opportunity for sleep.

Whales and dolphins are great examples of half brain sleepers. They need to maintain movement in their underwater environment. Half-brain sleep allows them to still do this while still getting plenty of NREM slumber (just one half of the brain at a time). Birds are also capable of half-brain sleep. Birds use unihemispheric sleep for survival purposes, although for different reasons. Birds use it to keep one eye on things, literally!

When birds land as a flock, the birds on the farthest left and right sides - the sentinels, as it were - undergo unihemispheric sleep, to keep one eye open for threat detection on their respective side (180 degree views on the left and right). The result being, combined, the entire flock gets full 360 degree panoramic threat detection. Indeed, all of the rest of the birds are allowed to sleep with both hemispheres i.e., full brain sleep.

The poor birds on the sides don’t actually get the chance to come into the middle of the flock, it seems. Instead, to get equal sleep on both sides of the brain, when one hemisphere has fulfilled its sleep need, these birds will rotate 180 degrees, and switch sides of the brain that is sleeping. Bloody remarkable!

We humans undergo our own rendition of unihemispheric sleep...sort of =) In an unfamiliar location, such as a hotel room, humans keep one of their hemispheres on guard in this potentially dangerous context. Meaning, one half of the brain does not go into as deep NREM sleep, almost as if it is remaining semi-conscious. Matt also notes that half-brain sleep only happens during NREM sleep. When all species go into REM sleep, both sides of the brain sleep. There is no unihemispheric dream sleep, it seems.

Please note that Matt is not a medical doctor, and none of the content in this podcast should be considered medical advice in any way, shape, or form, nor prescriptive in any way.

The good people at Athletic Greens are the sponsors of this week’s episode, and they are generously offering three benefits for anyone who uses the above link for their first order: 1) a discount on your order; 2) a one-year free supply of vitamin D; 3) five free travel packs. Athletic Greens is a nutrition drink that combines a full complement of antioxidants, minerals and biotics, together with essential vitamins. Matt’s been using it for several years now, first because he’s serious about his health and uses it as a full nutritional insurance policy, and second, because Matt did his research on the science and ingredients in Athletic Greens and thinks it’s science and scientific data that can be taken as ground truth.

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Next Episode

#19: Dreams - Part 2

In the second episode of this series about REM sleep dreaming, Matt explores what the science has to say not only about how we dream at the brain level, but what it is that we dream about.

Traditionally, civilizations such as those in ancient Egypt, believed that dreams were a form of divine intervention--a message from the heavens. Thereafter, Matt discusses Sigmund Freud, who introduced the notion of dreams originating from within the brain, not the heavens, and thus could be considered a science of the brain/mind. However, Freud went on to develop the (non-scientific) theory that dreams reflected the expression of our subconscious desires, but that those repressed wishes were transformed and disguised by the brain into a dream narrative.

Freud's theory suggests that, as we dream, our repressed wishes pass through a sensor in our mind, and then come out the other side as unrecognizable experiences to the dreamer. Freud believed that he understood how the sensor worked and could decrypt the disguised dreams, and thus know something about his patients that he could share with them. Matt notes that Freud's theory could never be proven right, nor wrong, and also why we no longer consider it as a valid scientifically rigorous theory.

Next, Matt delves into modern-day scientific methods that have led to new theories of why we dream, including a theory that dreams are a replay of our waking life experience of our past memories.

He recounts the work of his friend, Dr. Robert Stickgold, who found that only 1 to 2% of our dreams are really true clear replays of our prior waking life events. Matt also notes that, based on the same findings, there is a red thread narrative that runs from our waking lives into our dreaming lives = emotional concerns that we're having during the day, and the social individuals connected to those things.

Matt describes the latest research from a team in Japan that used MRI scans to predict the content of dreams. Matt postulates that science is getting ever closer to having the ability to know exactly what we are dreaming, and perhaps, take away ownership of the dream process from the dreamer itself.

Matt draws this episode to a close by asking some thought-provoking questions about whether we are truly responsible for what we dream about, and whether we should be held responsible for what we dream.

Please note that Matt is not a medical doctor, and none of the content in this podcast should be considered medical advice in any way, shape, or form, nor prescriptive in any way.