• Question: How and why do dreams work? Is there a point to them?

    Asked by Beth to anuantony, Duncan, Jayne, Katherine, Sajid on 8 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Duncan McNicholl

      Duncan McNicholl answered on 8 Nov 2017:

      I don’t think anyone knows for sure: it’s probably something to do with your brain sorting through your new memories from the day, but that’s mostly just a guess. If you wake someone up whenever they start dreaming, they get almost as tired as if they hadn’t slept at all, so there is some point to them, even if it’s just to get some rest. A weird thing for me is that dreams are the only time that I see pictures inside my head with my eyes closed, so it’s an odd feeling when I wake up in the middle of a dream.

    • Photo: Jayne Ede

      Jayne Ede answered on 9 Nov 2017:

      To go on from what Duncan has said, there’s a horrible condition called ‘Fatal Familial Insomnia’ – it’s super rare and basically causes people to not be able to sleep. They go through the normal phases you’d expect, like tiredness and inability to focus, but then have wild hallucinations, then become unable to speak or function at all, and then they die. So you can literally die if you don’t have any sleep.

      That’s pretty amazing to me, considering we’re not even sure what sleep is all about.

Comments