There is virtually nothing about any aspect of life that there is no explanation given to it by science. Even things that are supernatural or miraculous still have their own scientific explanations. Likewise, the dreams that we experience when we go to bed have their own scientific explanations. Then what is the unique explanation given by science to our dreams?
We all know that sleep is one of the most crucial aspects of man that affects everything about him. You will quiet agree with me that no single human that does not sleep. Even animals sleep. But a lot of things happen to us during sleep. What we experience in our sleep as we go to bed during the day or at night is what we call dream.
You see, science has been able to give unique interpretation to our dreams by explaining to us what happens when we sleep and dream. From the view of science, there are different kinds of dreams and each dream has different stages or cycles to it. There are about four stages or cycles to dreams. At each stage of dream or cycle, we have different experiences. Before looking at these stages, let’s see the scientific definition of dream.
What Is Scientist Definition Of Dream
Scientists defined dreams as images, thoughts, sensations, emotions and ideas that usually occur in the mind during several stages of sleep. Dreams represent the combination of many things like our emotions, events, people and places that are relevant to the person dreaming.
According to them, dreams are highly emotional because the emotional center in your brain is one of the areas of your brain that is most active during dreams. This emotional center is referred to as Amygdala. While the emotional center is very active during dreams, the prefrontal cortex which the decision making center of your brain is less active or inactive.
Dreams are often related to the things that have happened to us; things that are happening to us and things that are about to happen. Moreover, dreams happen at the subconscious level of our mind. Scientists have discovered that people have several dreams per night which varies in length. In fact, they estimated that we have roughly three to six dreams per night and around ninety five percent of these dreams are forgotten the following morning. We must know that dreams are the products of our brain.
What Happens During Dream
Science explained that certain events occur during dreaming which can be classified under four stages or cycles. Let’s examine those stages one after the other. This is what makes the meanings and interpretations of science unique from other forms of interpretation. Science base its interpretation on tested natural or physical facts and results while some other interpretations are based on certain facts, culture, religion, beliefs and contact with the spiritual realm of people. Now, let’s look at the four cycles of dream
The Four Cycles Of Dream
The First Stage: This is the stage of transition from wakefulness to sleep where brain waves start to slow down.
The Second Stage: This is a deeper stage of sleep where the brain waves becomes slower, the body temperature decreases and heart rate also decreases.
The Third Stage: This stage is deeper than the third stage but not yet the final stage.
The Fourth Stage: This fourth stage is the REM stage where most of our dreams occur. This REM is referred to as Rapid Eye Movement (REM). Scientists have discovered that during REM, our brain activity increases and our eyes move rapidly while our muscles become paralyzed. At this stage, our breathing also becomes irregular. The REM stage is the stage we experience the most memorable and vivid dreams.
It has been scientifically proven that, whenever we dream, our brains are busy making connections with several pieces of information gathered and trying to make sense of them. Scientists believe the purpose of dreaming is to consolidate our memory and helps us process emotion.
Moreover, not all dreams are equal. While some dreams are lucid, weird and recurring, others could be nightmares and prophetic dreams. Recurring dreams are signs that our brain is trying to process something we have not resolved in our waking life.
Lucid dreams on its own could be a fun way to exploit our creativity and imagination while nightmares could be a sign that we are struggling with anxiety and stress.
Finally, dreams are fascinating aspect of our sleep cycle and play a crucial role in our mental and emotional being. This is because during sleep, our brains are active which is what brings about dreaming. Science believes this is so because our brain processes the emotions, memories and experiences of what happened in the day before.
The most acceptable scientific explanation of dream is that dream comes as a result of brain processing and organizing information while we are asleep. Based on this scientific theory, they do not have specific meanings but they can provide insights into our thoughts, emotions and experiences. It is highly unfortunate that inspite of the good explanation science has been able to give concerning the stages of dream and what happen when we dream, it has not been able to give the accurate meanings to our dreams. Who could have thought the dream of cow that king Pharaoh of Egypt saw could mean years and who would have thought the image of gold as revealed to king Nebuchadnezar could be talking of the kingdoms of men? All these should tell you that there are more to dreams than the explanation science give to it. there is the deep spiritual meanings to most of our dreams.
Dreams And Spirituality
Like I have always said, science will always have explanation concerning every aspect of life. Well!, while scientific explanation and interpretations concerning different aspect of life are good, real and true to an extent, science does not give a complete and hundred percent explanation about everything. There is a hidden but real aspect of life that gives a better explanation and interpretation than science. This very aspect is the spiritual aspect which over the years have been denied, ignored or explained away.
There are two kinds of realm in the universe; and there are different and several kinds of kingdoms in the universe. There is the physical realm and there is the spiritual realm. There is the kingdom of God, the kingdom of man, the plant kingdom, and animal kingdom. Have you or any of our scientists ever asked or considered the realm in which dreams occur?
The Realm Of Dream
One of the questions that will enable us to solve the mystery revolving round dreams and to an extent give meanings and interpretations to our dreams is “ Is dream realm a physical realm or a spiritual realm or a semiconscious or subconscious realm? Once we are able to unravel this, it will make it easy for us to give meanings to our dreams and take advantage of them.
Definitely, you will all agree with me that the dream realm is not a physical realm. How can I prove this? Firstly, when we are asleep, our body is not active as we lay down disconnected from what is happening around us. You are not even conscious of what is going on in your environment. In view of this, we can rightly say the dream realm is not a physical realm. If it is not a physical realm, then what realm is it?
At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream of the night; and God said, “Ask! What shall I give you?” (1kgs 3:5) Now, if God spoke to Solomon through dream and we all know that God is Spirit, then the dream realm is a spirit realm. This is only one of the numerous areas in the scriptures where God spoke to people through dreams.
Now, from the scientific perspectives, studies have shown that during REM sleep, the part of our brain responsible for critical thinking and logic becomes less active while the one responsible for emotion and creativity becomes more active which result in strange and unpredictable nature of our dream as our subconscious soul.
Additionally, our brain cells consolidate memories and processes emotions during REM sleep which explains why we often dream about people and places in our physical life.
In view of this, It can be rightly said that the dream realm is also a subconscious realm. Then my final summation on this is that the dream realm is not a physical realm but a spiritual realm.
Since we now understand the realm in which dreams operate, we can now interpret or give meanings to our dreams based on those realms. Anytime we want to interpret our dreams, we now see it from both the spiritual level and that of subconscious level.
What Does Spiritual Realm Mean
The spiritual level is talking of the spirit realm of God, angels, Satan and his agents while the subconscious level is talking of a realm between the spirit realm and the physical realm which science is much more familiar with.
Why is it necessary to interpret or know the meaning of our dreams? It is necessary because dream interpretation allows us to know whether your dream is revealing something to you or not. Moreover, knowing the meaning of your dream will enable you take the necessary precautions and take advantage of such dream.
According to a trilogy expert, your dream takes about one third of your consciousness or life. In other words, If you are not paying attention to your dreams, it shows you are not paying attention to one third of your life. A dreaming state is another state of reality.
Do All Dreams Have Spiritual Meanings
Not all dreams have spiritual meanings to it. In my opinion this is where I think Science got it wrong. There are some dreams that come from the natural activity of the day like we said in our previous post. There are also dreams that come as a result of your thinking while the two remaining kinds of dream are from God and Satan. The dreams that come from the natural activity of the day and the one that comes as a result of your thinking have no spiritual interpretations attached to it. They are things around you, your place of work and so on that you have contact with on a daily basis that are now stored in your subconscious mind which eventually manifest in your dream.
But this is not so with the dream that comes from God and the ones that come from the devil or Satan. God will never reveal anything to you without giving the interpretation. There is always deep spiritual meaning to every dream God reveals to you which is always very far from human or scientific interpretation. Likewise the dreams from Satan, which also have deep spiritual interpretation. So, Scientists interpretation of dreams is only based on the dreams that occur through your thinking and the natural activity that happens on a daily basis.
Types Of Dream
1. THE DREAM OF THE DAY: This is the dream we have when we sleep during the day. This is quite different from daydreaming. The dream of the day takes place only during the day.
2. NIGHT DREAM: Just as the name implies, the dream of the night is the dream that takes place in the night. This dream occurs when we are asleep during the night hour.
3. DAYDREAMING: To daydream is to have a spontaneous and fanciful series of thoughts while awake not connected to immediate reality. When you are daydreaming, you are not sleeping but fantasizing in which your wishes, expectations and other potentialities are expressed in your imagination. A lot of people believe there is nobody that does not fantasize.
4. RECURRING DREAMS: These are dreams that happen or occur frequently, with repetition. For instance, somebody can be having a recurring attack of sexual dreams. This dream is nothing but the repetition of the same kind of dream. Recurring dreams could mean that our brain is trying to process something we have not resolved in our waking life.
5. PROPHETIC DREAMS: Prophetic dreams are dreams that speak about your future or something that is yet to happen.
6. NIGHTMARES: Nightmares have been referred to as the kind of dreams in which one experiences a feeling of extreme anxiety or suffocation in his sleep. It is a very bad or frightening dream. In fact, it is believed that a demon or monster use to plague people while they sleep which result in suffocation and terror during sleep. Nightmare is an unpleasant dream that can cause a strong emotional response like fear, despair, anxiety and sadness that occurs in the mind.
7. LUCID DREAM: Lucid dream is a dream in which the dreamer is conscious that he’s dreaming. The dreamer here may have certain level of control over his dream. This dream can occur in the middle of a particular dream in which the dreamer suddenly realize that he is dreaming.
You see, lucid dream is not something new but has been practiced since the ancient times. According to the Greek philosophy, dreams play a crucial role in the life of people. Philosophers like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle had something to say during their days about dreams.
According to Aristotle in his book titled “Treaties”, lucid dreams occur when somebody is sleeping and there is something in his consciousness which present itself to the person dreaming that he is in a dream.
Has Lucid Dream Been Proven Scientifically?
According to science, lucid dream has been scientifically proven through an experiment in 1975 and found to be true and real. It was also discovered that the area of the portion of the brain responsible for self reflection is larger among the lucid dreamers than others.
Moreover, the prefrontal cortex in the brain of the lucid dreamers is responsible for filtering and help to determine which actions and thoughts are relevant and irrelevant. Dreams are real and powerful in helping us shape our destiny in a desired direction if only we know how to take advantage of them.
Well, while the scientific interpretations of dream may be right to a great extent, the spiritual interpretation is much more real and powerful. This is because we are spirit beings in spite of the fact that we live in a material or physical world. And since dreams take place in subconscious and spiritual realms, we should be more concerned about the spiritual meanings and interpretations than the scientific meanings and interpretations.
In addition to this, lucid dreams help us to become more self aware, find answers to some questions of our life and life generally. It also helps us to improve creativity and visualization power
Why We Should Be More Concerned About The Spiritual Meaning Of A Dream
The reason we should be more concerned about the spiritual meaning of a dream than the scientific meaning is that, either we like it or not, it is the spiritual realm that dictates and rule over the physical realm. In other words, what happens to you spiritually determines what happens to you physically except you consciously intervene through certain spiritual exercise and some physical precautions. Though, It has been proved by science that, self reflection in everyday life is more pronounced in the lives of people who can control their dreams. Yet, it is when you are able to know the spiritual interpretation of your dream and take the appropriate steps that you can eventually be able to take charge of your dream.
What Does The Advocate Of Lucid Dream Say
The advocates of lucid dreamers have explained based on scientific experiment that when you are conscious that you are dreaming, you will not be subject to the environmental laws and that of physics as you are capable of carrying out whatever your mind thinks. This will now allow you to unleash the full potential of your brain. For instance, people like Nicola Tesla have been able to use lucid dreams in achieving great feats. He did not only do this but also helped others in doing so. Another scientist who achieved great feat via lucid dream is Albeit Einstein who discovered the principle of relativity.
Benefits Of Dreams
1. Dreaming helps the brain to process information gathered during the day.
2. It helps to learn and develop long term memories
3. Dreaming plays an important role in memory consolidation
4. Dreams help us to process emotions thereby allowing our brain to simulate emotional scenarios which we can work through while we sleep.
5. Dreams help to regulate our moods
6. Dreaming helps to process events in a more rational way
7. Dreams, especially like lucid dreams help us to become more self aware and find answers to many questions of life including ours
8. Dreaming helps us to improve creativity and increase visualization power
9. Dreaming like lucid dreaming helps us heal from past trauma and fear
Conclusion
In conclusion, dreams are real and powerful in helping us shape our destiny in a desired direction if only we know how to take advantage of them. Moreover, while the scientific interpretations of dream may be right to a great extent, the spiritual interpretation is much more real and powerful. This is because we are spirit beings in spite of the fact that we live in a material or physical world. And since dreams take place in subconscious and spiritual realms, we should be more concerned about the spiritual meanings and interpretations than the scientific meanings and interpretations. The reason is because either we like it or not, it is the spiritual realm that dictates and rule over the physical realm. In other words, what happens to you spiritually determines what happens to you physically except you consciously intervene through certain spiritual exercise and some physical precautions.
