Just a Dream

And then I’m falling.

Throat straining in a silent scream, legs flailing limply for purchase. I don’t know where I am. I don’t how I got here. Only one thing is certain — I’m going to die.

But suddenly, like the disappointing ending to an uninventive film, I am awake. My breaths come quick and ragged as I untangle myself from a mess of blankets. Laying flat on my back, I steady myself enough to check my phone. 12:10am. Damn. I roll over and inhale deeply, attempting to obtain the same sense of calm that lulled me to dreamland just ten minutes earlier. But the dream has shaken me, and I struggle to sleep. Was this dramatic episode a sign? A warning? No, I think, it was just a dream. It doesn’t mean anything at all.

Even in the morning the feeling lingers, more like a memory than a dream, so I confide in a group of my friends over breakfast. I expect my dramatic retelling of the dream to shock this captive audience, but instead I receive knowing looks from almost every person at the table. Finally, one of the women across from me leans in like she’s about to impart a secret I’ve been left out of until now. “I’ve had a dream just like that,” she says, eyes wide. After her confession, all but one of the people I’m sitting with indicate that they, too, have had a sudden falling dream. Somehow this discovery doesn’t calm me. If almost everyone has had this dream, there must be a reason, right?

A quick google search on the matter turns up a promising number of pages. Several tell me that I must be anxious and insecure in waking life. Others inform me that I am facing forces I feel are out of my control. As I click through a myriad of results, I am unsure what to believe. I can’t help but think of a horoscope — satisfying but secretly empty. Eventually, I find out this comparison is strangely apt. Interpreting the manifest, or remembered, contents of a dream as related to abstract meanings is an outdated and unscientific model formalized by psychologist Sigmund Freud. In 1899, Freud posited that dreams were a reflection of inner desires, and this idea was so simple, so exciting, that despite its antiquity it is still shockingly widespread. Many bookstores boast titles such as “The Dream Encyclopedia,” and “The Dream Dictionary for Dummies,” storing them right next to self-help volumes. When analyzing one’s dreams seems as simple as looking up a word in a dictionary, it’s no wonder so many people have stopped seeking scientific explanations for what they experience every night.

And to be completely honest, that’s just what I do. I stop searching. With no readily available consensus, I fall back on my previous assumption that my dreams have no bearing on waking life. That is, until Chanukah rolls around. A friend of mine who is aware of my dormant interest in dreams buys me The Mind at Night, the first scientific book I’d read purely out of interest. Over winter break, I disappear into its pages and my excitement mounts as I discover that dream science is, although in its infancy, much more established than I’d previously thought. In fact, the field has one main explanation for why we dream: neural noise.

Many modern scientists believe that when we sleep the electrical connections in our brain, the neurons, keep firing. To avoid the dangerous task of fully shutting down the brain, the body places it into a sort of screen-saver mode with the neurons active at a lower level. In the daytime, neural activity conveys every sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch in our surroundings. At night, however, the neurons spark quietly and randomly. These scattered signals give the brain the confusing task of putting together a bigger picture, but one that does not actually exist. All it can do is its best. This explains why dreams can seem vaguely related to real-life events but often contain confusing twists and non sequiturs. What a simple explanation I marvel, pondering how I’ve gone 18 years of my life without knowing how I spent one third of it. I hardly sleep during winter break, my feeling of uncertainty subsumed by the buzz of excitement. I kick my blankets off. I pull them back up to my chin. I wonder if my falling dream might have a similarly simple explanation.

Then, on another sleepless night that week, I am elated to find out this is, in fact, the case. Using a more honed and scientific search, I no longer see a smattering of unrelated theories. I am no longer reading a horoscope. My heart races as I notice the same term repeated over and over again. A “hypnic jerk”. That’s what this is. Somehow even knowing the word feels like a relief; a diagnosis. Reading further, I learn that a hypnic jerk is a common, and mostly normal, occurrence. When the brain and body power down for the night, the brain usually reaches its resting state before the rest of the body goes completely limp. However, if tension seeps out of the muscles before the brain powers down, panic ensues. Since the brain can only do its best to interpret outside stimuli, it can be tricked into thinking this lack of tension means you are falling. Believing that you are in grave peril, the brain activates the “fight or flight” response with a surge of adrenaline.

Memories of my own precipitous fall flood back more vividly than I could have expected. The plummeting sensation, the sudden muscle spasms, and the abrupt awakening. It all made sense now. Although the experience was terrifying in the moment, it was a perfectly normal test of my brain’s ability to protect my body. I sigh. I knew it. Nothing’s wrong. It was nothing. With my case effectively closed I am about to close my computer, when I notice a paragraph about hypnic jerk prevention. I continue to read, and learn that scientists believe that stress, sleep deprivation, and excess caffeine intake can increase the frequency of falling dreams. With a little attention to lifestyle choices, they claim many have had success in limiting these frightening episodes. The buzz of my excitement swells. While my falling dream does not technically mean anything, it can tell me something.

I am still trying to understand the whispers of my dream as I wait for my annual physical, sitting patiently in the Lexington Pediatrics waiting room. Should I drink less coffee or maybe change my sleep routine? My doctor will probably know. Soon I’ll have to make the four-hour drive back to the Middlebury College, so I want to make sure I’m healthy before I return to rural Vermont. As my mother warned me, I wouldn’t find a reliable hospital for miles around. I’m called in by a smiling nurse and follow her into a room decorated with similarly smiley cartoon characters. As she turns to leave, she assures me that the doctor will see me shortly. Finally, answers. When my primary care physician comes in, we run through the normal questions with clinical efficiency. Do I have any major complaints? How much do I exercise? What do I normally eat? While my doctor diligently notes that I only occasionally drink a full cup of milk, I can’t help but wonder why that’s so important. Why hasn’t she asked me how well I sleep? How well I dream? Despite these concerns, I say I have no further questions when she asks. She wouldn’t care, I think. It’s just a dream.

It’s just a dream, but in some ways, it isn’t.