WHAT YOUR DREAMS REVEAL ABOUT YOUR health

Those nocturnal reveries could be more significant than you think. Bonnie Vaughan uncovers some fascinating research

- Bonnie Vaughan

There’s a lot we don’t know about dreams, but here’s what we do know: we all have them, usually several in any given night, lasting between five and 20 minutes, but we can’t remember most of them.

Dreams happen when we’re in the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep, a time when our brain is very active. About 20 to 25% of our total nightly slumber time is spent in dreamy dream land but it’s not all sunshine; sleep researchers estimate that nearly 75% of our dream-based emotions are negative.

BUT WHAT DO THEY MEAN? 

Philosophers, psychologists and physicians have been trying to figure out the meaning of our dreams for millennia. But a surge of scientific interest in the vital link between sleep and health has led to some eye-opening new theories.

“We don’t understand where a whole lot of things in the brain come from,” explains Professor Dorothy Bruck, sleep psychologist at the Sleep Health Foundation. However, it’s possible that certain areas of the brain are able to identify that we have a health issue, she adds.

“Like when you have a sore knee and you try to ignore it, your brain is still receiving the message that you’ve got a sore knee,” she says. “Your brain is very busy during REM, so it may pick up on something like that.”

The trick is to determine whether or not the dream is meaningful, which is why it’s useful to write down any memorable, recurring dreams. Keeping a record will help you to see if there is a pattern that points to a possible health issue. Here are just a few possible explanations…