Understanding the Science of Dreams: A Look into the Dreaming Brain, Slides of Psychology

Download Understanding the Science of Dreams: A Look into the Dreaming Brain and more Slides Psychology in PDF only on Docsity!

By: Brian Austin & Morgan Gaters

• The brain is an amazing organ, and it is interesting to discover the correlation between dreams and the brain and also what goes on while we sleep.
• Replacing the mysterious view of dreams with an actual understanding of modern dream science gives us a better picture of the relationship between dreams and the brain.

• The dorsal lateral pre-frontal cortex becomes de- activated when we are dreaming. That is the part of the brain responsible for decisions or volition.
• This is also the rational part of the brain. However, there are other areas of the brain that deal with rationality so we don’t loose all rational thinking while we dream.

• The chemistry in the brain changes when some parts of the brain are reactivated during sleep and others are not.
• When we are awake certain neurotransmitters allow us to be able to have short-term memory. While we are dreaming, the chemistry changes in a way that we lose very quickly what we have just dreamt.

• Because of the areas that are active in the brain while we dream, anything can happen in our dreams and the brain becomes hyper-associative which means we are more able to think outside the box than while we are awake.

As technology became more advanced, different researchers have their own theories about what dreams are and what goes on in our brains while we are dreaming.

Joe griffin: the

dreaming brain

• A research psychologist Joe Griffin purposed the expectation fulfillment theory of dreaming. This theory states that there are three principles of dreaming, which are: dreams are metaphorical interpretations, dreams are expectations that produce emotional responses that are not acted upon during the day become dreams during sleep, and dreaming is a way of dealing with emotional arousal by completing the expectations in our dreams that we did not complete when awake.