The human brain is responsible for many complex creations, but it can’t invent the image of people. So the “strangers” that you meet in your dreams actually have the faces of people who you’ve once seen in your real life but forgotten, like your childhood mailman or that guy bumped into on the side walk that one time.
5 .The origin of the phrase “Pipe Dream” was referring to ideas thought up while smoking opium.
A pipe dream is something typically regarded as an unrealistic hope or fantasy. The phrase can be traced back to the dreams experienced by opium smokers, which were very prevalent in the 18th and 19th centuries by the highly literate.
Chances are that you’ve laid their eyes on more than a few individuals, and so the brain as a huge cast of characters to play with when you drift off to sleep. Except for in the case of extreme psychological disorder, every human being dreams. In fact, in a recent study, students who were awakened at the beginning of each dream but still allowed 8 hours of sleep, all experienced difficulty concentrating, irritability, hallucinations, and signs of psychosis in a span of three days.
When they were allowed their REM sleep, their brains compensated for the lost time by increasing the percentage of the sleep spent in the REM stage. Dreams are a window into the subconscious. Even though most of the time, they’re completely random, disorganized, and we forget 90% of them within 10 minutes of waking up; many people have drawn inspiration from their dreams. Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein was a based on a dream that she had.
Scientists at UC Berkeley have achieved a major milestone in their quest to create a technology that would let us tap into our brain's imaging systems. They used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and computational models and they succeeded in decoding and reconstructing visual experiences of their test subjects.
The tests they ran had people watching a movie trailer. Then, they reconstructed the images using their new technology. While that's as far as they can do right now, it puts them one step closer to being able to tap into your dreams.
The more noble implications for this technology will allow some sort of understanding, and even communication with people who cannot communicate verbally. For example, stroke victims, and people in comas.
Most people over the age of 10 have 4 to 6 dreams every night. Those numbers times 365 days in one year makes for between 1,460 and 2,190 dreams every year. We dream during REM periods (which is when we have Rapid Eye Movement in our sleep) which can range anywhere from 5 minutes to half an hour long. In the course of one night this happens multiple times.
"Wait a minute!" you might be thinking, "I don't remember having 4 different dreams in one night, and I certainly don't remember having over 1,000 dreams this year." The fact of the matter is, you forget between 95% to 99% of all the dreams you have. That may seem kind of high, but most of your dreams don't really interest you enough to make you want to remember them.
Dreams are commonplace and don't require enough concentration to force you to remember them. In that sense, they are similar to other routine actions you do throughout the day like driving or tying your shoes. You don't remember most of the time you do those things either.
"Wait a minute!" you might be thinking, "I don't remember having 4 different dreams in one night, and I certainly don't remember having over 1,000 dreams this year." The fact of the matter is, you forget between 95% to 99% of all the dreams you have. That may seem kind of high, but most of your dreams don't really interest you enough to make you want to remember them.
Dreams are commonplace and don't require enough concentration to force you to remember them. In that sense, they are similar to other routine actions you do throughout the day like driving or tying your shoes. You don't remember most of the time you do those things either.
4. You can teach yourself to control your dreams.
The method is called "lucid dreaming," which means that you're aware of the fact that you're dreaming. That way you have the freedom to choose how your dreams go. In most cases people turn nightmares into good dreams or fly.
5 .The origin of the phrase “Pipe Dream” was referring to ideas thought up while smoking opium.
The earliest reference comes from The Chicago Daily Tribune in December 1890, where it is said “[aerial navigation] has been regarded as a pipe dream for a good many years.”
In 1895, the first reference to opium smoking with the phrase is found in The Fort Wayne Gazette. Detailing a story of a man who predicted the suicide of another man, the reference says that if “reputable men had not verified it” it would sound more like “the 'pipe dream' of an opium devotee.”