My name is Matthew Walker. I am a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California Berkeley, and I am the author of the book, Why We Sleep.
What is dreaming and what happens? And are there any real benefits to dreaming?
Well, to take a step back, I think it's important to note that dreaming, essentially, is a time when we all become flagrantly psychotic. And before you, perhaps, dismiss that diagnosis, I'll give you five good reasons.
Because last night, when you were dreaming, first, you started to see things which were not there, so you were hallucinating. Second, you believed things that couldn't possibly be true, so, you were delusional.
Third, you became confused about time, place, and person, so, you're suffering from disorientation. Fourth, you had wildly fluctuating emotions like a pendulum.
Something that we call being affectively labile. And then, how wonderful you woke up this morning and you've forgotten most, if not all, of that dream experience.
So, you're suffering from amnesia. And if you were to experience any one of those five symptoms while you were awake, you would be seeking psychological or psychiatric treatment.
Yet, during sleep and dreaming it seems to be both a normal biological and psychological process. What are the functions, then, or benefits of dreaming?
Well, we know that dream sleep which principally comes from a stage that we call rapid eye movement sleep or REM sleep. Dream sleep, actually, provides at least two benefits for the brain.
The first is actually creativity. Because it's during REM sleep, and dreaming specifically, when the brain starts to collide all of the information that you've recently learned together with all of this back catalogue of autobiographical information that you've got stored up in the brain, and it starts to build novel connections.
