IN THE DREAMSCAPE OF NIGHTMARES, CLUES TO WHY WE DREAM AT ALL

Link: www.nytimes.com

Oustrageously bad dreams are a universal human experience. Although few of us suffer from nightmares crippling and persistent enough to demand treatment, we all know how bad a nightmare feels. Nightmares and dreadful dreams offer potentially telling clues into the larger mystery of why we dream in the first place, how our dreaming and waking lives may intersect and cross-infect each other and how we manage to construct a virtual reality in our skull.
A big reason bad dreams offer insight into the architecture of dreams generally is that most of our dreams are bad. Studies have shown that three-quarters of the emotions described by subjects periodically awoken out of rapid eye movement sleep, were negative. We spend 60% to 70% of somnolence dreaming, which works out to three hours nightly spent in a state of anxiety or frustation.
Nightmare frequency varies by age and sex, content also shifts over time and across cultures. Roughly 25% of children ages 5 to 12 being awakened by had bad dreams at least once a week. Nightmares rates climb through adolescence, peak in young adulthood, and then begin to drop. At nearly every age, girls and women report having significantly more nightmares than do boys and men. A fact that some researchers say may be related to women’s comparatively higher rates of anxiety and mood disorders.
In conclusion, although when asked some people say they do not dream at all and some others do not remember what they dreamed about, it has been scientifically proved that all of us always dream while we sleep. Some of these dreams are just bad dreams and some others are nightmares and their frequence and content will depend on many factors such as age, gender and culture and even more, the persistence of repetitive nightmares can demand psychological treatment.

Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán review n 4
Source: www.nytimes.com