{"id":24971,"date":"2023-03-08T08:00:43","date_gmt":"2023-03-08T07:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sciencefocus.com\/?p=138460"},"modified":"2023-03-08T09:35:15","modified_gmt":"2023-03-08T08:35:15","slug":"what-makes-even-your-strangest-dreams-feel-familiar-explained-by-a-neuroscientist","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/rss_feed\/what-makes-even-your-strangest-dreams-feel-familiar-explained-by-a-neuroscientist\/","title":{"rendered":"What makes even your strangest dreams feel familiar, explained by a neuroscientist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our sleeping brains weave a patchwork out of our memories in complex, baffling ways. <\/p>

By Dean Burnett\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 08 March 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Dreams are weird.<\/p>\n

For one, they\u2019re interesting in general, but very boring in isolation. People often like to know more about dreams and what they mean, or represent, or why they happen. By contrast, hardly anybody likes to hear about someone\u2019s specific <\/em>dream.<\/p>\n

But the reason people are compelled to tell you about their dream (when they can remember them, which isn\u2019t guaranteed<\/a>), is typically because they involved fantastical, unlikely occurrences. Utterly impossible events happen, then immediately flow into completely different ones, with no obvious rhyme or reason. Contexts, behaviours, individuals, they all shift around randomly during our dreams, with no care for coherent narrative or the laws of physics. It\u2019s all very weird.<\/p>\n

Except, rarely does it feel weird while it\u2019s happening<\/em>. We can be dreaming about floating upside down in a cavern of milk, sat alongside someone who is both our mother and co-worker at the same time, and our dreaming self will still think \u201cYep, this is all to be expected. Typical Tuesday occurrence\u201d.<\/p>\n

Why is this? Why would our sleeping brain be so blas\u00e9 about deeply unusual reality-bending experiences?<\/p>\n

A big part of this is down to the reason we dream in the first place. A growing body of research strongly suggests that dreaming is a vital part of memory consolidation<\/a>. Our brains don\u2019t just create all of the memories we accumulate while we\u2019re awake and leave them sat there purposelessly, like most of the photos on the typical smartphone.<\/p>\n

No, our newly acquired memories need to be effectively integrated into the brain\u2019s stores and networks of existing memories that are the basis of our identify, our sense of self, our very minds, and more. This is what memory consolidation is, and a lot of it takes place during our dreams.<\/p>\n

Again, this makes a lot of sense, because the time when we\u2019re asleep is the time when new memories aren\u2019t continuously being created and added to the to-be-consolidated pile. It\u2019s like how people working on a road make sure it\u2019s closed first, because trying to do their job while cars are still using it would be considerably more difficult.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also important to note how we believe memories are stored in the human brain. Biological memories aren\u2019t separate, distinct, standalone files of complex information, like the aforementioned photo images in a smartphone. No, it seems that our memories are made up of discrete elements, linked up in unique, complex ways<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For instance, if you\u2019re in a long-term relationship, your partner\u2019s face will be one of the most familiar things you encounter in your waking life. But if your brain was to create a whole new memory of your partner\u2019s face every time you see them, soon you\u2019d have tens of thousands of memories, all for the exact same thing<\/em>. This is in no way efficient, particularly for an organ as demanding as the brain<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Instead, it\u2019s more that you have one established memory of your partner\u2019s face, and when new memories are formed that involve them, those memories are linked to the stored representation of their face.<\/p>\n

Elements of memory can represent anything we experience. Sights, sounds, emotions, colours, people, and more. Combining and connecting these elements in useful ways is what memory consolidation, or dreaming, is for<\/a>. As far as we know.<\/p>\n

But when these memory elements are being worked on while we\u2019re asleep, they\u2019re also being \u2018activated\u2019, like how you need to run power through an electrical circuit to know whether it works. And when a memory is activated, we re-experience it.<\/p>\n

But while conscious experiences are consistent with the laws of nature, dreaming experiences are not beholden to such things. Say, if you are feeling anxious about an upcoming work meeting, then you\u2019ll have a load of new memories with an element of anxiety. To better incorporate this new anxiety element, your dreaming brain will link it to other memories that include an element of anxiety.<\/p>\n

Say you remember being anxious before singing in public or doing scuba diving for the first time. Your dreaming brain will connect your new anxiety to these existing memories. The end result could be that you end up dreaming about singing underwater.<\/p>\n

This is an impossible act. But your dreaming brain doesn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, everything that happens in a dream is derived from bits of memory, temporarily bound together in complex, baffling ways that your brain imposes a sense of \u2018self\u2019 onto, in order to better process things in useful ways<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What this means is, no matter what baffling and impossible things occur in our dreams, they\u2019re always made of things that our brain is already familiar with<\/em>. Because they\u2019re memories.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s as if you came home one day to find your partner has rearranged all your furniture. You might be surprised at the new configuration, but you wouldn\u2019t think \u201cWhat\u2019s all this new furniture?\u201d Because you\u2019d recognise it.<\/p>\n

Just like our dreaming brain does with our memories. They may be presented in whacky, implausible ways, but the sense of \u2018this is all familiar\u2019 endures. Because, as far as your brain is concerned, everything is <\/em>familiar.<\/p>\n