Hi! I'm New and I'm a dreamer

[buckyboom101]

Hi everyone, first i want to tell your guys a little bit about me and then I'm going to tell u my unofficial dream theory

I'm Gabe, I'm only a freshman in high school (9th grade), but don't let the deceive you. I'm and honor student and I LOVE THE BRAIN. Everyday I try to tell my self I'm not going to research the brain and get my homework done before midnight, but that never happens. Some might say its a problem, a big academic problem and i go with them, but secretly in the back of my head i know it's just setting me up for future such success.
Okay, so now here's the part most of you probably want to hear my new Dream Theory. First, in order to really understand my theory you have to think of it as a Microsoft Office program were your saving a document, but to a different location in your computer. Now that you know that i can tell you. The reason we have dreams according to my theory is its a part of the short term memory to long term memory system. the reason we have the dreams is because when those memories are being transferred to long term memories your subconscious has to basically reopen the memory "go to file, save as, then save it to a different location (a.k.a long term memory)."The part of the memory we experience as a dream is do to that process taking place. The reason that we can rarely seem to remember the dream or why it's usually so foggy is because while we are sleeping our conscious mind slows down and cant register information as fast as if it were awake and alert. Also if you do happen to remember your dreams a lot you would always notice that the faces of the people in your dreams and things like that always seem to be someone or something you have seen fairly recently. The reasons when we dream there always is something that's just not right because like i said before are conscious mind can't process the information fast enough, so what it does is it fills in whats missing with something that is thinks would fit, but your stress levels, emotion, and other things along those lines would affect what your brain fills the gap with.

so that all i have for it so far, but PLZ if you have any ideas on how to revise it or other information that would support it PLZ tell me and thank you (remember i'm only 14 and don't have any real training in neurology) and one more thing if you think this could be a real

[buckyboom101]

just wondering do any of you actually read the whole thing

[VGJen]

Hi Gabe, good on you for being so motivated at so young, keep it up! You've got some good ideas but you need to keep researching. Here's my perspective on dreams (based on things I read ages ago so I'm afraid I can't give you the sources, sorry).

When you are asleep the different parts of the brain behave very differently to when you are awake. Your brain cycles in and out of different stages of sleep and when it is in an 'REM' phase it is dreaming and if you wake up during that phase you will probably remember your dreams very vividly. Whereas if you wake during 'non-REM' you probably won't remember anything (poor memory of dreaming isn't due to a 'slowing down' process). One of the main processes that is going on during REM is increased synchronization driven by the thalamus. When you are awake the thalamus acts as a switch for sensory information going up to the brain and motor actions coming from the brain to the body. During REM the thalamus is much more active but it is 'disengaged' from the body. The thalamus is randomly activating different parts of the brain so the brain seems to think that it's receiving sensory input, or parts of the body are moving, or any memory can be activated (recalled) (also activate different emotions!). Then the brain/consciousness-part tries to make sense of these random things and puts them together in a dream (be careful about personal bias from your own experiences. I often dream of things from years ago or things I have never seen before).

You're right in that dreaming is important for consolidating memories, but whether short-term memories and long-term memories are stored in different places is under questioning. I think dreams are just random activations and it strongly depends on what stage of sleep you are in when you wake up as to which dreams you remember. I hope this makes sense!

Jen

[buckyboom101]

Hi Jen,

When I recall writing this I said the memories are moved to a different location in the brain, what I meant by this was the connections between the synapses of important information would be strengthened, while none relevant or crucial information would be destroyed or lost. I only said it was moved for simplicity sake on my behalf. Also, I know now that one of the most popular theories on the purpose of dreams is very similar to mine, but i only found out about that other theory (sorry i forgot the name of it) about a year after i made this post.