TL;DR – While we know that sleep is very important, what about dreams? what purpose do dreams serve?
If you haven’t caught The Sandman showing on Netflix (released on August 5), then you should!
“It’s easily one of the best-looking series that Netflix has produced with light, colour, scale, depth… it could go so wrong, feel small, or mishandle the done, and it doesn’t. It’s moving, scary, or otherworldly when it needs to be. – Jeff Ewing, Forbes
Not to worry, there are no spoilers in this article. This article seeks to discuss why dreams are important to us.
Dreaming is therapy
Some scientists consider dreaming to be an unintended consequence of sleep – a byproduct with no benefit. On the contrary, sleep is proven to be very important as a lack of it could detrimentally affect our health. More than that, sleep helps us process and keep our memories which contributes to our ability to learn facts and skills faster.
Time spent in dream sleep appears to remove the painful sting experienced in the day and offers emotional resolution when you wake the next day. It is only during this time that our brain is free of a key stress chemical making it a safer and calmer environment while we re-process upsetting memories. This process of healing helps us learn from troubling experiences and carry on with our lives.
Workers’ Party MP Jamus Lim says schools should start at a later time so students can sleep longer
Dreaming enhances creativity and problem-solving
While we dream, our brain will ponder over acquired knowledge and then extract overarching roles and commonalities, creating a mindset that can help us divine solutions to previously incomprehensible problems.
In a study, some participants were asked to navigate through a virtual maze using trial and error. One group were sent to take a nap while another did not. The group that napped reported that they were dreaming about the maze, and they were 10 times better at solving the challenge than those who did not nap.
The reason for this success for those who napped was because while they dreamed, they were cherry-picking prominent fragments of their learning experience and attempted to place them within their catalogue of pre-existing knowledge, this is how dreams help us be more creative.
Dreams in the waking world
While we’ve addressed the benefits of dreams while we sleep, dreams in the waking world are equally important. Without dreams, there will be no ambition to chase or coals to reach. Dreams give us a sense of meaning and a purpose.
We may face failures along the way, but we will keep moving further because dreams are the fuel that keeps us energized to go further and develop an attitude of doing better.
So, dreams are important in life. They heal us, help us think better, and motivate and inspire us. Don’t stop dreaming Singapore.
