The old expression “Let me sleep on it” may actually hold some value. Harvard scientist, Robert Stickgold, has researched how daytime activities affect our dreams. It appears that the brain, both human and animal, is continuously keeping track of the emotional content experienced daily. These experiences are ’flagged’ as important matter and are temporarily put off to the sidelines to be worked on at a later point in time. For example, while asleep, our brain then calls upon these important matters and is able to continue working on them thus giving the brain a chance to process and potentially resolve issues one might be grappling with during the waking hours.
If the brain is constantly absorbing information while awake, is the body then able to specifically call upon this information database while asleep? For example, if a student is preparing for a major exam, will the student better retain the studied information if he or she does so just before bedtime? Based on what Stickgold is staying, the brain is able to continue working and processing long after one falls off to sleep. Therefore it would make sense to study said material up until the point of retirement in order to manipulate the brain to keep working and better retain the desired information.
Dreams become a continuation of our conscious life, however because everyday life is often hectic and we are often juggling so much at once, when it is time to sleep, the brain will often pool together apparently unrelated events and create vivid and often bizarre dreams. This happens because the brain begins to shuffle these daily events, emotions and relationships and in the dream world will often create inexplicability. This subconscious interpretation is actually a replay of patterns replicated from daily activity. Think about it, when analyzing one’s own dreams, often times, one will see similar faces, routines and examples that directly reference the happenings of daily life.
So next time you find yourself flying through the classroom hallways naked, remember that the brain is always able to create something new out of unrelated things but if you look close enough, there might lay the answer.
