'When we dream, we have the perfect chemical canvas for intense visions'

In lucid dreams, you become aware you’re dreaming. You can take control of the plot. They can be anything from a brief moment where you’re in a nightmare and tell yourself: “this is a dream” and wake up. 

Dreams are an opportunity to work through things that frighten us in real life, to play out worst-case scenarios in an environment where they have no consequences. 

Dreaming helps us consolidate new memories: we replay salient experiences from the day, reinforcing new pathways in our brains. 

In one study, people enrolled in a French-language intensive course had an increase in REM sleep and dreams while they were studying: their brains were working overtime to master a new language, and that work continued in their sleep.

Most dreams are actually less bizarre than people think. When we dream, the logic centres of our brain – the frontal lobes – go dark, and chemicals associated with self-control, like serotonin and norepinephrine, drop. At the same time, the emotion centres light up: we have a perfect chemical canvas for dramatic, psychologically intense visions.

When psychologists analyzed hundreds of dream reports, they found that most of them could have passed for descriptions of the dreamers’ real lives.

Dreams offer the opportunity to think in a different way and show new answers to problems, 

They show us blind spots and help us home in on things we might be neglecting in our personal lives.