What Happens To Your Brain When You Dream

Sleep expert Matthew Walker breaks down what happens in your brain when you dream.

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Following is the transcript of the video:

Matthew Walker: 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 believe 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 forgot 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 the 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 catalog of autobiographical information that you've got stored up in the brain. And it starts to build novel connections, it's almost like group therapy for memories. And through this pattern of informational alchemy at night, we create a revised mind wide web of associations. And you can start to divine new novel insights into previously unsolved problems, so that you wake up the next morning with new solutions, and it's probably the reason that no one has ever told you that you should stay awake on a problem. Instead, people tell you to sleep on a problem. And we now have good evidence that it's dream sleep that gifts you that type of informational wisdom rather than simply knowledge.

The second benefit of dream sleep is essentially a form of overnight therapy. It's during dream sleep where we start to actually take the sting out of difficult, even traumatic, emotional experiences that we've been having. And sleep almost divorces that emotional, bitter rind from the memory experiences that we've had during the day. And so that we wake up the next morning feeling better about those experiences. So you can think of dream sleep as emotional first aid and it sort of offers this nocturnal soothing balm that smoothes those painful stinging edges of difficult experiences. So it's not time that heals all wounds, but it's time during dream sleep that provides you with emotional convalescence.

[alphamale]

I often forget my dreams almost instantly when I wake up. But I remember I had a dream, only that I forgot what it was.

[mariodiaz]

who has ever woken up in a dream within a dream only to realize their reality is a dream.

[exiverence]

I'm a writer and have a highly active imagination, so I remember my crazy vivid dreams when I wake...some are surely story worthy!

[jmasu]

Who else had a nightmare and then woke up in the middle of the night and you are really scared then later u think like “lol wtf that’s not scary”

[acecraige]

Everytime I dream about something, I write it down as soon as possible, before I forgot about it

[AndrewStefan]

0:48 Ron Weasley looking into the mirror of erised

[everywhere]

I dreamt about figure skating in public and I felt aliveeee.

[thebahooplamaster]

So dreaming makes you more creative..?

What about daydreaming then..? Daydreaming has become a terrible nuisance to me at school; however, it has served me so well when making something artistic like a portrait or a YouTube Video

[manloloyojosh]

Quick question: Does the brain release some kind of hormone or chemical when under the effects of a nightmare? If it is what is it and what does it do and why?

[_OrleansBabby]

Anyone else sometimes get a dream that they are peeing in a toilet but really on yourself I used to get that when I was younger

[aslanyureky]

I used to be software developer. as you know algorithm is key of good coding. and once I get stuck in algorithm and I mean really stuck like few hours of hard thinking and get nothing, I was just giving up and sleep on it. next morning I woke up with solution. I dont remember my dreams normally, but when I have problem that needs to be solved, and it is the last thing I work before I go to bed, I wake up with solution every time. there is only one rule; there should be no gap between problem and sleep, otherwise it doesn't work. brain keeps working on the last problem faced much better than 10 hours earlier problem. I turned to be film maker, time to time I'm writing a script. when I get stuck, I do the same trick and it never failed me. it always works when I need creativity.

[slorr]

I hallucinate sometimes, i wake up and still kinda asleep but i see shit and it isnt scary but its really weird lol

[pietersnackaert]

if im dreaming i see the future somehow

[aaronhusar]

Sometimes I'll be sad in dreams about painful memories, or times I miss so much that's it's painful to think about.

[justaracoonchillinginatoilet]

I hate having a dream of waking up like ten times until I've actually woken up. I know there's a term for this but i cant remember

[minholly]

Since I’m very shy, I dreamed that I was dancing in public and singing my lungs out and I was moving CRAZYYYY that I fell off my bed ;-;

[krashedfiles]

I hate false awakening. I wake up, , but really, I’m still dreaming. So I wake up like 12 minutes after I “wake up” I sometimes even say in my dreams “don’t let this be a dream”, and everything seems so real, But I’m really dreaming

[Addy]

I am first to comment and it feels like a dream

[tingting]

I really want to ask what if dream happen on that day itself ...That u realized it happens in ur dream
...I have that last year and this year for 3 or 4 time ....

[LordSaboLP]

I can't explain it, but i literally remember 90% of my Dreams, every single dream in fact, i don't take notes the morning after, well.... not on paper, but mentally.
Hasn't happend once that i have woken up, not knowing what my adventure that night was.