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Dreams Actually Virtual Reality Threat Simulation?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the fighting-the-forces-of-evil-in-your-underwear dept.

Time Slows Down writes "Psychology Today has an interesting story on a new theory of why we dream. Finnish psychologist Antti Revonsuo believes that dreams are a sort of nighttime theater in which our brains screen realistic scenarios simulating emergency situations and providing an arena for safe training. 'The primary function of negative dreams is rehearsal for similar real events, so that threat recognition and avoidance happens faster and more automatically in comparable real situations,' he says. We have 300 to 1,000 threat dreams per year — one to four per night and just under half are aggressive encounters: physical aggression such as fistfights, and nonphysical aggression such as verbal arguments. Faced with actual life-or-death situations — traffic accidents, terrorist attacks, street assaults — people report entering a mode of calm, rapid response, reacting automatically, almost without thinking. Afterward, they often say the episode felt unreal, as if it were all a dream. 'Dreaming is a sensitive system that tries to pay much attention to the threatening cues in our environment,' Revonsuo says. 'Their function is to protect and prepare us.'"

2 of 452 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Yeah by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The funny part is some of us *don't* dream. Seriously.

    I know that I pretty much stopped dreaming about the time I hit puberty. Vivid dreams as a kid but once I 'grew up' they stopped.

    How do I know this you ask? Because during a sleep test for sleep apnea they found out my blood oxygen saturation level was about 80%, below the threshold needed for REM sleep. So from about 12-14 to 26, I couldn't dream. Just not enough oxygen to do it.

    There were the occasional odd dreams when a sleeping position allowed better than normal oxygen levels, but mostly I just didn't.

    Even today, after the surgery, my dreams are wildly mild stuff. Mostly just replaying some experience of the recent days.

    It did sort of explain why HS was mostly just a fog for me though...going without restful sleep for multiple years will do that ;-)


    --
    People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
  2. Personal experience... by Phanatic1a · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One fairly common dream that people in the self-defense community have is the one where you come under sudden attack and your gun malfunctions, or is out of ammunition, or for whatever reason you can't fire it at your dream-attacker.

    I didn't have this dream *until* I started training with a handgun for self-defense purposes. I grew up hunting, with rifles and shotguns, and didn't have this dream. Not until I incorporated the self-defense aspects into my identity. Then my brain started to throw that dream at me.

    So, yeah, I can buy this idea.