The striking weirdness of dreams in contrast to the quotidian sameness of life may help keep our minds sharp.
COVID-19 has created a ‘shared mindscape’ in people’s dreams.
One reason that people have scary dreams.
Scientists think one of the functions of sleep is to forget excess information.
People taking the vitamin were more likely to remember their dreams.
Usually when we recall emotional memories, the brain pumps out stressful neurochemicals…
Usually when we recall emotional memories, the brain pumps out stressful neurochemicals…
One of the purposes of dreaming is to take the edge off emotional memories, research suggests.
While dreaming, which we do during 20% of our sleep, the brain chemistry related to stress powers down.
This enables us to process emotional memories without the same jolts of fear and anxiety.
People in the study who looked at a series of emotional images felt much less disturbed by them after sleeping.
Those who looked at them in the morning first, then in the evening, without sleeping, reported a higher emotional reaction.
Brain scans also showed lower emotional reactivity in the amygdalas of those who slept.
Dr Matthew Walker, who led the study, said:
“The dream stage of sleep, based on its unique neurochemical composition, provides us with a form of overnight therapy, a soothing balm that removes the sharp edges from the prior day’s emotional experiences.”
The research was inspired by the treatment of war veterans experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder.
This type of dream therapy may be inefficient in veterans since when a…
“…flashback is triggered by, say, a car backfiring, they relive the whole visceral experience once again because the emotion has not been properly stripped away from the memory during sleep.”
Dr Els van der Helm, the study’s first author, said:
“During REM sleep, memories are being reactivated, put in perspective and connected and integrated, but in a state where stress neurochemicals are beneficially suppressed.”
Dr Walker explained that the research was inspired by the side-effect of a blood pressure drug.
It happened to reduce levels of norepinephrine in the brain.
Dr Walker said:
“We know that during REM sleep there is a sharp decrease in levels of norepinephrine, a brain chemical associated with stress.
By reprocessing previous emotional experiences in this neuro-chemically safe environment of low norepinephrine during REM sleep, we wake up the next day, and those experiences have been softened in their emotional strength.
We feel better about them, we feel we can cope.”
The study was published in the journal Current Biology (ven der Helm et al., 2011).
People tend to think of daydreaming and letting the mind wander as a waste of time.
People tend to think of daydreaming and letting the mind wander as a waste of time.
How wrong they are.
New research suggests daydreaming could be key to success and higher creativity.
Professor Moshe Bar, who led the research said:
“Over the last 15 or 20 years, scientists have shown that — unlike the localized neural activity associated with specific tasks — mind wandering involves the activation of a gigantic default network involving many parts of the brain.
This cross-brain involvement may be involved in behavioral outcomes such as creativity and mood, and may also contribute to the ability to stay successfully on-task while the mind goes off on its merry mental way.”
For the research, neuroscientists stimulated the frontal lobes electrically.
Professor Bar explained:
“We focused tDCS [electrical] stimulation on the frontal lobes because this brain region has been previously implicated in mind wandering, and also because is a central locus of the executive control network that allows us to organize and plan for the future.”
With the electrical stimulation people reported more daydreaming and mind wandering.
They also performed slightly better on a task they were given to do.
Professor Bar said:
“Interestingly, while our study’s external stimulation increased the incidence of mind wandering, rather than reducing the subjects’ ability to complete the task, it caused task performance to become slightly improved.
The external stimulation actually enhanced the subjects’ cognitive capacity.”
Previous studies have linked “on-task” mind wandering or daydreaming with increased performance.
As I explained in the previous post:
“Daydreaming and mind-wandering can have positive effects on mental performance in the right circumstances, a new study finds.
It used to be thought that when people are trying to solve puzzles, they perform best when the mind wandering part of the brain — called the ‘default network’ — is relatively inactive.
This makes sense given that ‘off-task’ thinking is likely to distract our focus.
In contrast to other research, though, a new study suggests the default network can sometimes help with tasks that require focus and quick reactions.”
The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Axelrod et al., 2016).
Not all daydreaming is bad for focused thinking, new study finds.
Not all daydreaming is bad for focused thinking, new study finds.
Daydreaming and mind-wandering can have positive effects on mental performance in the right circumstances, a new study finds.
It used to be thought that when people are trying to solve puzzles, they perform best when the mind wandering part of the brain — called the ‘default network’ — is relatively inactive.
This makes sense given that ‘off-task’ thinking is likely to distract our focus.
In contrast to other research, though, a new study suggests the default network can sometimes help with tasks that require focus and quick reactions (Spreng et al., 2014).
Dr. Nathan Spreng, who led the research, said:
“The prevailing view is that activating brain regions referred to as the default network impairs performance on attention-demanding tasks because this network is associated with behaviors such as mind-wandering.
Our study is the first to demonstrate the opposite – that engaging the default network can also improve performance.”
Whether mind wandering helps or hinders comes down to how in sync it is with the task itself.
For example, daydreaming about an upcoming holiday is unlikely to help with solving a math puzzle.
In this study, though, people tried to match faces that were presented to them under time pressure.
The faces were either anonymous or of very famous people, like President Barack Obama.
As you’d expect, people were faster to match up the famous faces, as they’d seen them before.
But, the critical finding was that the brain’s default network — which is associated with reminiscing — supported people’s memory for these faces.
The more this area of the brain was activated, the faster they were at the task.
Dr. Spreng continued:
“Outside the laboratory, pursuing goals involves processing information filled with personal meaning – knowledge about past experiences, motivations, future plans and social context.
Our study suggests that the default network and executive control networks dynamically interact to facilitate an ongoing dialogue between the pursuit of external goals and internal meaning.”
In other words: mind wandering isn’t always bad, even when we’re trying to focus on a task that requires attention and speed.
Sometimes daydreaming helps rather than hinders.
Image credit: Xtream_I
For a few minutes after waking, my mind is filled with the alien imagery of dreams. Perhaps these dreams contain the roots of my neuroses?
Continuing the series on unusual research in psychology we search for proof of dream telepathy, a search which has thrown up some controversial findings and an experiment during a Grateful Dead concert.
For a few minutes after waking, my mind is filled with the alien imagery of dreams. Perhaps these dreams contain the roots of my neuroses? Or perhaps they are just the random flotsam of a brain unhooked from its body. Or perhaps they are something more intriguing — could they be a window through time and space itself?
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