And do dreams show the future?
I want to thank @Gia_Linhv and @JermiBear for this article idea 🙏
The average person sleeps for about one-third of their lifetime, or around 25 to 30 years.
Imagine how much you could do or what you could create with that amount of time. So, why is it that we need to spend these 8 hours on sleep every day? What happens when we sleep and is it really THAT important?
Let’s find out!
So, what happens when we sleep?
Well, when we sleep we:
- Heal
- Regenerate
- Clean
- Stabilise cognitive abilities
- Dream
- Process information
- Understand/Consolidate
And much more. But these are the points I want to go over today — especially why we dream and can dreams display the future?
Sleep is incredibly important for our health. When we sleep the body heals, regenerate, and cleans out toxin — especially our brain. While we sleep, the body heals and rebuilds cells, tissues, and organs. We of course also regenerate energy for the next day!
In our brain the glymphatic system opens up during sleep, allowing cerebrospinal fluid to wash our brains and washing out neurotoxic waste products including amyloid plaques. Amyloid plaques are toxic proteins that, when build up, cause diseases like Alzheimer’s.
So, without proper sleep, our bodies will fail to fully heal, recover, and wash out toxins leaving us prone to a substantial amount of health issues.
A little sidenote:
Sleep also promotes muscle growth by increasing protein synthesis within the body, and without sleep, our muscles do not recover as quickly or effectively.
When we lack sleep, we harm our ability to make decisions, concentrate, focus, and we can reduce our memory and learning capacity. So, when you want to build a brand on say Twitter, sleep is super, super important for your ability to make great content and to connect with people.
Without enough sleep our body and brain basically fall apart — so remember to sleep!
When it comes to dreaming, I would like to combine it with the fact that when we sleep, our brain process the information we have gathered throughout the day.
The reason we dream, is because when we sleep, we consolidate, and process information gathered throughout the day. And what you see when dreaming is your brain going through the mixing pot of it all and untangling every single piece of information so it can be stored in our memory and really be understood.
So as some people say, our dreams in some way do show a reflection of our day to day lives. But it can be difficult to untangle our dreams to find that true reflection. Though thinking about your dreams and how you sleep can without a doubt tell you a lot about yourself and other people.
Then we have the lovely question from my friend Jeremy Paule: “Can your dreams display a certain moment that’s going to happen in the future?”
And to that I will say dreams, as we have just gone over, display a mixture of everything you have experienced mostly throughout the specific day. So, if you know the future yourself then yes, you will definitely see the future in your dreams — but I’m guessing you probably can’t see the future.
Though let’s say that we can see the future, then how can we access those views? And then it must also mean that our life is already determined, right?
And if you ever have those moments where you feel like you have dreamed about this exact moment some time ago, then it is most likely either a coincidence or just false memory bias which is a pretty normal thing affecting us all. False memory bias is just the fact that the brain often does not fully remember memories, so it starts filling them with imaginary stuff, or that it thinks it remembers it because it closely resembles something else you have experienced.
And this false memory bias is actually a common problem in eyewitness testimonies, criminal investigations, therapy sessions, and other situations where memory accuracy is critical.
Anyways, back to the topic!
So yes, sleep really is THAT important, and it makes 100% sense to give it one-third of our lifetime. Without enough sleep we will begin to fall apart and lose the ability to keep doing great things. Lack of sleep also contributes to major health problems like Alzheimer’s or organ damage. So do not forget to sleep folks!
I hope you enjoyed this article, and I will see you next time 💪
