Dreaming at night is completely normal – and not always being able to remember it, either! If you like, you can train yourself to save dreams.
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The brain doesn’t take a break, it’s active 24/7. At night it gives sleepers dreams – scenes or experiences play out in their mind’s eye. But after getting up, many often do not know whether and what they have dreamed.
«That’s completely normal,» says Prof. Michael Schredl, scientific director of the sleep laboratory at the Central Institute for Mental Health (ZI) in Mannheim.
«In principle, everyone dreams when they sleep, otherwise something is wrong with the brain,» explains Schredl. How the dreams look exactly is very different: sometimes they are thoughts and memories, sometimes they are more imaginative new creations.
Different sleep stages, different dreams
And the type of dream experience is also very different over the course of the night. «This is due to the different cycles that the body goes through during sleep,» explains Dr. Alfred Wiater. The pediatrician is a board officer at the German Society for Sleep Research and Sleep Medicine (DGSM).
After falling asleep, the human being slides through light sleep into a deep sleep phase. The body is relaxed, the brain works little. The dreams in these sleep phases are short and abstract.
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Then it goes into REM sleep. REM stands for «Rapid Eye Movements», i.e. rapid movements of the eyes with closed lids. «Dreams are most intense during REM sleep,» says Wiater.
The brain is creative
But what do people dream anyway? «Usually it’s about what occupies you during the day,» explains Schredl. These can be nice things like a planned trip, but also stress or trouble with the supervisor.
Sometimes the nocturnal mental cinema also shows scenes or experiences that initially have nothing to do with one’s own world. “That shows how creative the brain can be,” says Schredl.
According to the expert, dealing with dreams is definitely worthwhile. Because that way you can learn a lot about yourself – yourself and especially from stressful dreams.
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Consciously changing nightmares
«They are based on a mental disorder, which is very treatable,» explains Dr. Annika Gieselmann, psychological psychotherapist at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf.
When nightmares keep coming back, experts assume that the underlying story is scripted into memory. The nightmare thus has a life of its own and has become detached from the processing of what has been experienced.
Those affected can do something about it, says Gieselmann. «It often helps, either alone or with a confidante, to figure out how to change the story of the nightmare so that it’s no longer bad.»
Memory can be trained
If this strategy does not help, sufferers should seek professional help. «The cause could then possibly be a mental stress disorder,» explains Wiater.
If you don’t remember your dreams, you can train. For example, it can help to make a firm decision before you fall asleep that you want to remember the dream, says Schredl.
Something to write down and dictate should be close at hand by the bed. And while waking up, you repeat what you dreamed over and over again, like a poem – that’s how it stays in your memory.