- 22 hours ago
- #brightside
- #brightsideglobal
Have you ever wondered why you never see smartphones in your dreams, even though you use them every day? Or why you can't tickle yourself, no matter how hard you try? Or why you always wake up before you die in your nightmares? These are some of the mind-blowing whys that I'm going to answer in this video. You'll discover the fascinating science behind these phenomena, and learn some amazing facts about your brain, your body, and your reality. So get ready to be amazed, and don't forget to click the bell icon and subscribe for more awesome videos like this. #brightside #brightsideglobal TIMESTAMPS: 0:01 Introduction to the world of dreams 4:32 Why we don't feel ticklish when we're asleep 7:59 How many dreams do we remember? 9:32 Techniques for lucid dreaming 19:50 All about sleeping stages This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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00:00You're alone in a dark alleyway when you hear a lion's roar.
00:05Peeking out of the shadows, the king of the jungle stares at your face and runs directly towards you.
00:10You try sprinting to get away from it, but it looks like your legs and arms are moving through jello
00:16-like air.
00:17That's when you spot an old phone booth and manage to get inside it.
00:20But how do you even call anyone in one of these things?
00:24Where's your smartphone?
00:26The world of dreams is a crazy one, to say the least.
00:30It's a safe place to live out our deepest and darkest fears.
00:34But regardless of what common knowledge says, it's not where all things are possible.
00:39For example, you'll most likely never dream of your smartphone, and you'll have a pretty hard time trying to run.
00:46Why, though?
00:48Scientists are still studying why humans dream.
00:51So there's a lot we don't know about the science of dreaming just yet.
00:55But there's a theory that helps to explain why we have a hard time dreaming of modern things,
01:00such as smartphones, computers, and even airplanes.
01:04It's called the Threat Simulation Hypothesis.
01:08Let's call it the TSH.
01:10This theory says that by living our deepest fears and anxieties through our dreams,
01:15we are practicing how we would react to them in real life.
01:19That's why so many people relive traumatic experiences in dream states.
01:24The brain is trying to condition us to survive threatening situations
01:28by practicing them out in a safe environment, a.k.a. the sleeping state.
01:34So, if you dream you're being chased in the woods by a bear,
01:37or you're trying to finish that math exam without studying,
01:40this is your brain anticipating possible reactions by trying them out in a dream state first.
01:46It makes you sharp and aware in case these things do happen to you in real life.
01:52Should we thank our brains for this?
01:53I think so, yeah.
01:55But that's just one half of the story.
01:57Scientists also argue that since the dream state evolved as a defense mechanism,
02:02we tend to dream about situations that were dangerous to our ancestors.
02:07So, modern technologies such as computers and smartphones will rarely appear in people's dreams.
02:14Notice I said rarely?
02:16That means it's not universal.
02:18According to an analysis of 16,000 dream reports,
02:22smartphones do seem to appear in 3.55% of women's dreams,
02:28while computers appeared in only 1.2%.
02:31It's a very small number,
02:33but still, some people have the luxury or the haunt of dreaming about their cell phone.
02:39But why can't we run, though?
02:41I don't know about you,
02:42but I'm always trying and failing to run in my dreams.
02:46There are a couple of reasons why that might happen.
02:49Some dream experts suggest that it might be because,
02:52when we're sleeping,
02:53our brain is active,
02:55but our muscles are relaxed and lying still.
02:58Some conflicting signals may happen,
03:00which result in the running through water movement we feel in a dream state.
03:05Another theory says that when we're dreaming,
03:07we're engaging in a constant act of world-building.
03:10Our brain is building the scenarios we're engaging with,
03:14processing all the information that's unfolding before us.
03:18If we started running,
03:19maybe the brain wouldn't be able to keep up with the world-building.
03:23So our dream avatars are slowed down to a speed
03:26that is compatible with the brain's processing speed.
03:30You're flying above crystalline sea waters.
03:33The wind is brushing through your hair.
03:35You look around,
03:36and there's a pig-faced pelican smiling at you.
03:39It approaches you,
03:40and starts to tickle your nose with its feathers.
03:42You laugh,
03:43but you can't feel a thing.
03:45What's up with that?
03:47Here's a fun fact.
03:48Even lucid dreamers can't feel ticklish when they're dreaming.
03:52In case you don't know,
03:53lucid dreaming happens when a person is aware that they're dreaming,
03:57and starts to constantly narrate the course of their dreams.
04:00It's where you get to be the scriptwriter and director of your own life.
04:05Scientists speculate that lucid dreaming is not a state of sleep,
04:08but rather a state of wakefulness,
04:10where the person can establish a so-called two-way communication between dreaming and real life.
04:17Does this remind you a little bit of the movie Inception?
04:20If it does,
04:21that's because Christopher Nolan took inspiration from his experience with lucid dreaming
04:26in order to write this movie.
04:29Anyways,
04:29in a study published by a neuroscience journal,
04:32researchers worked with lucid dreamers to see if they could tickle themselves
04:36or be tickled by other characters in their dreams.
04:39And they found something quite amazing.
04:42Dreamers couldn't feel the tickles.
04:44Researchers think this suggests that when we're dreaming,
04:47the part of the brain that reacts to stimuli is minimized.
04:51And let's face it,
04:52that's a good thing when you're dreaming you're stuck inside a house catching fire, right?
04:56Now let's say you just woke up from an agitated dream.
05:00You spent the night dreaming you were at a rock concert
05:02where the band members were your childhood stuffed animals.
05:06You remember all the minor details of the dream,
05:08but you can't seem to remember any of the melodies the teddy bear band was singing.
05:13Why is that so?
05:14Most people don't or can't dream of music,
05:17but that seems so strange since music is a huge part of our daily lives.
05:22The only ones who do seem to dream and remember the soundtrack of their sleeping lives are musicians.
05:28To understand this a bit more, we have to look at another dream theory.
05:33In 1983, scientists came up with a neurobiological theory called reverse learning.
05:40This theory says that during our REM sleep cycles,
05:43the neocortex reviews our daily neural connections and decides what to do with them.
05:49That's when our short-term memory is tucked away in the long-term memory section of our brain.
05:55And it's also the moment when our brain cleans up.
05:58It dumps the unnecessary neural connections and tries to keep the important ones.
06:03In this theory, dreams are the result of this unlearning process.
06:08Say you've been dealing with some anxiety regarding your work.
06:12You suspect you might get fired and that's all you think about.
06:15Your brain makes up different make-believe scenarios,
06:18playing out a series of interactions that end up never happening in real life.
06:23Some of these neural connections will be deleted from your brain database while you sleep.
06:28This is what might happen to music.
06:31The dreaming mind treats music as parasitic and non-essential,
06:35preventing it from ever making it to the long-term memory pile.
06:39If you think about it, our brain kind of protects us from having that cheesy melody stuck with us for
06:45eternity.
06:46Let's do a quick thought exercise.
06:48Consider that an average human being spends about 2 hours dreaming every night.
06:53That means by the time that you're 80 years old,
06:56you'll have dreamed the equivalent of 60,000 hours.
06:59That's 10 years worth of dreaming.
07:02Crazy, huh?
07:03Now imagine if our brains didn't erase a cheesy melody we listened to more times than we would have liked.
07:09I can't even begin to imagine the overload of information our brains would have been able to stalk.
07:15Moving on.
07:17You know what else you can't do while you're dreaming?
07:19Experience things in real time.
07:22We just said we spend an average of 2 hours dreaming each night.
07:25But on average, we sleep around 8 hours.
07:28And it does feel like we spent all those hours dreaming.
07:31According to recent research,
07:34a simple action that might take 5 minutes in waking life to be performed
07:37can take much longer in a dream.
07:40They tested this out with lucid dreamers,
07:43where scientists would ask them to perform a task and signal when they're done,
07:47while the researchers timed everything.
07:49Perhaps that's why we get the impression we dream for 8 hours straight every night.
07:54Tell me one thing, though.
07:55How many of you even remember your dreams?
07:59According to statistics, half of us remember at least one dream a week.
08:03And women are more likely to remember their dreams compared to men.
08:07Care to tell us about any recent dreams of yours?
08:14Have you ever realized that you're dreaming in the middle of a dream?
08:17Oh, wait, this isn't real.
08:20Then you kind of write the script of your dream while you're still in it.
08:25Lucid dreaming is a technique allowing you to control your dreams.
08:29Here's everything you should know about this practice,
08:32and other cool facts about dreams.
08:35Ah, dreams.
08:37They're mysterious and unpredictable.
08:40You remember them perfectly when you first wake up,
08:43but then they seem to fade away.
08:45Lucid dreaming changes these features.
08:47Basically, you know you're asleep and dreaming.
08:51With that level of consciousness,
08:52you shape the dream's narrative with your imagination.
08:56Several factors affect the recollection of dreams,
08:59such as how many hours you sleep,
09:01and even your diet.
09:03Studies reveal that people who make less effort
09:05to remember what they dream about during the night
09:08can more easily enter the lucid state.
09:11If you've never had this type of dream,
09:14that's also okay.
09:15Good news!
09:16People can learn and get better at this with time.
09:19In fact, there's more than one way to practice having lucid dreams.
09:23A researcher tested the effectiveness of five different techniques,
09:27working with hundreds of participants.
09:31The first technique of lucid dreaming is reality testing.
09:35Here, the participants are expected to examine their physical environment repeatedly every day
09:40to perceive its reality.
09:42The goal is to turn this behavior into a habit.
09:45In that way, participants can make reality checks in dreams
09:49and understand that they're dreaming.
09:53You can also do reality checks during the day.
09:56This will enhance metacognition, which is the awareness of your own thoughts.
10:00You get used to differentiating real life and dreams.
10:04You can check the time to see if it's running normally,
10:06because you can't really comprehend the flow of time when you're in a dream.
10:10Or, press your finger into your palm to feel if it's solid or not.
10:15Applying these reality tests when you're awake will prepare your brain to try them in a dream
10:20and enter lucidity.
10:23The second technique is called wake back to bed.
10:26This one suggests you go to bed and set the alarm to wake up after five hours.
10:31You stay awake for a short time and do an activity to stimulate your mind,
10:36like writing or reading.
10:37Then you go back to sleep.
10:39This way, you go straight back to the REM phase.
10:43You can dream during this stage of your sleep cycle.
10:46So, by kind of tricking your conscious brain,
10:49you make it stay active as you re-enter REM sleep.
10:54The next technique has one of the highest success rates.
10:58Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams, or MILD for short,
11:02also asks you to wake up after five hours of sleep.
11:05And when you wake up, you should remind yourself that you intend to realize that you are dreaming
11:11the next time you go to sleep.
11:12You can literally say to yourself,
11:15Next time I'm dreaming, I'll remember I'm dreaming.
11:18Think of our brains like supercomputers.
11:21You program your computer with this phrase.
11:25When you notice that you're sleepy, focus on the most recent dream you had.
11:30Try to pick up a dream sign.
11:32This could be something that felt surreal about the narrative of your dream.
11:36Your intention is to remember, return, and visualize that dream to become lucid in it.
11:44Okay, I know no one probably wants to leave their cozy bed and wake up in the middle of the
11:49night,
11:49but the senses-initiated lucid dream technique also works like that.
11:54This practice suggests that the participant should focus on noises, sights,
11:59and physical sensations after waking up.
12:01They can control the action and the content
12:04if they concentrate on each stimulus for 20 seconds before falling asleep again.
12:08This one is among the most effective techniques.
12:13The last technique is a combo.
12:15When the alarm wakes you up after 5 hours of sleep,
12:18you focus on the sounds and the sensations you get from your surroundings.
12:22Then you remind yourself of the whole point of doing it
12:25with the help of the intention phrase.
12:27It requires practice and takes time.
12:30Little by little, people become more mindful of their dreams.
12:37Did you know that younger people have a natural tendency to have lucid dreams?
12:41A Harvard study found that most younger people experience these dreams in their growing up process.
12:47The results show us that people don't actually learn, but rather remember how to become lucid.
12:52This means we have the know-how all along.
12:55We just need to practice it.
12:58You might think that using your imagination to control your dreams can make you feel tired,
13:04but it's the opposite.
13:05Once you become lucid, your brain moves into the gamma wave brain state.
13:10And this is cool.
13:11Lucid dreaming is like a natural state of meditation.
13:15And you wake up with more energy.
13:19Do lucid dreams have other benefits?
13:21Yes, they're good for your overall well-being.
13:24You get vivid, real-life experiences.
13:27You can't do some of the things you can dream of when you're awake.
13:31It may help consolidate motor skills and ease anxiety.
13:35What's even more interesting is that your brain also gets benefits from lucid dreaming.
13:41The area of your brain called the prefrontal cortex gets reactivated,
13:45and your neuroplasticity becomes engaged.
13:48This is the ability of your brain to rewire itself.
13:52For example, to enhance a newly learned skill.
13:55Studies reveal that if you practice an athletic discipline in a lucid dream,
14:00your brain rewires itself in a way that makes you get better at that discipline.
14:05These types of dreams are also used to treat recurring nightmares.
14:09It's used as a tool to overcome the stress people have after traumatic events.
14:14This method is proven.
14:16Some psychotherapists use it during their sessions to help their counselees integrate their trauma.
14:21Researchers say that lucid dreaming has the potential to heal
14:25if people become lucid and apply some visualized healing techniques under the surveillance of their therapists.
14:32We've talked about the benefits, but can lucid dreaming be dangerous?
14:37It's generally safe, but there are risks, too.
14:41It's hard not to notice that many of the techniques require interrupting your sleep cycle.
14:46This might be bad for people who have existing mental health conditions.
14:50Another side effect of a broken sleep cycle may include dissociation.
14:54If you can't figure out what is a dream and what's real, that's a problem.
14:59There's also something called sleep paralysis.
15:02You know, the times when you're conscious, but you can't move.
15:06Some people can't even open their eyes, and you just desperately wait there for your brain to let you move.
15:12So it's super important to consult a therapist or sleep specialist before trying to enter lucidity.
15:19Let's say your therapist or sleep specialist has approved your work with lucid dreaming, and you're excited to start.
15:26What should you take into account?
15:28The answer is sleep hygiene.
15:30Sleep hygiene means that your daily actions, especially before bedtime, have an impact on your overall sleep quality.
15:37A healthy sleep habit requires a comfortable sleep environment and a consistent sleep schedule.
15:42If you have those, you can get a restful sleep and rise and shine the next day.
15:49If you sleep in a cool and dark room, that's a plus.
15:53You've probably heard hundreds of times about the good effects of moving electronic devices out of your bedroom
15:58or stopping looking at screens at least 30 minutes before taking a nap.
16:03It works in favor of lucid dreaming, too.
16:05This routine helps your brain to be in the mood for deep sleep, where you can dive into REM.
16:12People born blind have sensory dreams instead of image-based ones.
16:16Instead of the sense of sight, dreams are shaped by other senses.
16:21Other than that, the intensity of dreams is equal.
16:24By comparison, people who become blind later in life still have visual dreams.
16:30Here's a bonus.
16:32Animals also have dreams.
16:34Your four-pawed best friend sometimes goes on an adventure in their sleep.
16:40So, have you ever had lucid dreams?
16:42If yes, tell us about how it went.
16:45In this world, there are spiders the size of a house.
16:48The water in the rivers is as hot as lava, and the grass is as sharp as a blade.
16:53But you don't have any reason to be worried, because you control everything in this world.
16:57This is your dream.
16:59There are no barriers for you here.
17:02You can run at the speed of light, fly across the sky, jump from one planet to another.
17:07There are no boring rules.
17:09The laws of physics and biology are a distant memory.
17:13Animals can talk, and trees can walk.
17:15The floating mountains look especially beautiful against the background of the bright red sky.
17:20Do you want a closer look?
17:22No problem.
17:23This is your world.
17:24You could pick up your bike and race across the clouds to the mountains.
17:28No, that's far too boring.
17:30You can become a cloud and float there yourself.
17:34Ahem.
17:35What?
17:36Who's coughing?
17:37There's someone standing behind you.
17:39You turn around and see a man in a white coat and glasses.
17:43Dr. Johnson, what are you doing in my dream?
17:46He starts to talk to you.
17:48Buddy, it's time for you to wake up.
17:51Suddenly, everything fades to black.
17:54Something unknown pulls you out of the dream world.
17:56You slowly open your eyes.
17:59Weirdly, you don't feel groggy at all.
18:01Electrical sensors are dangling uncomfortably on your head.
18:05Dr. Johnson is standing in front of you next to a lot of complicated equipment.
18:10Hey, welcome back to the real world.
18:13For more than 100 years, researchers have been trying to unravel the mystery of dreams.
18:18In recent years, they've taken a small but important step forward.
18:22Scientists don't know how to fully enter our dreams, but they've learned to communicate with a dreamer while they sleep.
18:28In four independent laboratories, scientists observed the sleep of 36 volunteers.
18:34For this, they used special sensors that monitor brain activity and pick up neural signals.
18:39The researchers asked the participants questions with audio recordings and Morse code.
18:44They tapped on the volunteers' hands and blinked light signals to try to get through to the dreamers.
18:51Amazingly, when they woke up, the sleeping people claimed to have heard the scientists like a voiceover in a movie.
18:58For some, the audio recording even became part of their dream.
19:02For example, one of the dreamers said they heard a voice coming out of a radio, asking if they knew
19:07the Spanish language.
19:10Volunteers answered yes or no questions with eye movements or facial muscle cues.
19:14They could even solve math problems in their sleep.
19:17When asked what 8 minus 6 was, a volunteer blinked their left and right eyes to signal the answer was
19:232.
19:24Of almost 160 questions asked, the researchers successfully established a two-way contact around 20% of the time.
19:32That means that even now, scientists can infiltrate our dreams reasonably easily.
19:37You might be surprised at how much scientists already know about the way humans sleep.
19:42An average person in good health gets to sleep in about 10 minutes.
19:46Sleep isn't that simple, though.
19:48It comes in a few different stages.
19:49As soon as you fall asleep, you're in something called non-REM sleep.
19:54This early stage of sleep, brain activity, heart rate, breathing rate, and body temperature all drop.
20:00This takes up about 70% of our total time of sleep.
20:04Sleep continues through a few more phases until it reaches REM sleep, after 80 to 90 minutes.
20:11REM means rapid eye movement.
20:13Describing the strange darting movements that our eyes make during this sleep stage,
20:17REM is the deepest stage of sleep.
20:20And most scientists agree that it's the most crucial part of your night,
20:23even though it's only around 30% of your time asleep.
20:26Interestingly, there isn't much difference in brainwave activity between REM sleep and wakefulness.
20:32At this time, you see the most vivid and lucid dreams.
20:35If you wake up unexpectedly, you'll most likely be able to remember what you saw in your dream.
20:40While most muscles relax during non-REM,
20:43they all tense up and freeze in place when you reach the deepest stage of sleep.
20:48This paralysis is useful.
20:51It stops us from moving or reacting in response to vivid dreams.
20:54Most people spend about a third of their life asleep.
20:57A good night's rest is as essential as food, water, air, and the internet.
21:02But what could happen if you stayed awake for a long time without sleeping?
21:05If you neglected sleep for more than 24 hours,
21:08your memory, attentiveness, and hearing would all get worse.
21:11You would find it difficult to make decisions,
21:14and your visual coordination would decrease.
21:17After 36 hours of insomnia, blood pressure rises,
21:21hormone production is disrupted,
21:22so your emotions would become erratic and you would have little self-control.
21:26You would struggle to motivate yourself to do anything.
21:29At 48 hours without sleep,
21:31your emotional and physical condition would plummet.
21:34Your body would try to save you by forcing you to have micro-sleeps.
21:37Micro-sleep is where your body shuts down for as little as a few seconds.
21:41But most people don't even notice their bodies do this.
21:44So it can be really dangerous to do anything without proper sleep.
21:48Whatever you're doing,
21:49your vision fades and your brain shuts itself off.
21:52You would wake up and continue whatever you were doing
21:55without even noticing the few seconds you lost.
21:57After 72 hours without sleep,
22:00things start to get serious.
22:01Even though this might not seem like that long without sleep,
22:05things get really bad at this point.
22:07You might begin to experience hallucinations,
22:09and most people begin to lose their connection to the real world and act strangely.
22:14Overall, it isn't a good idea to go without sleep.
22:16It even worsens the skin,
22:18leads to an increase in general stress.
22:21All of this might make you wonder what the world record is for spending the longest time awake.
22:26If things get that bad after only two and a half days,
22:29surely it can't be much longer than that.
22:31One of the longest times ever recorded was by Randy Gardner,
22:35a student in 1964.
22:36He kept himself awake for 11 days and 25 minutes.
22:40In total, he was awake for 264.4 hours.
22:44All of this was done for a scientific experiment.
22:47He wanted to prove that extreme sleep deprivation had no real long-term consequences.
22:52For the most part, he seemed to be right.
22:54Gardner was irritable for most of the experiment,
22:56but he didn't face any terrible issues the longer it went.
23:00The worst thing he experienced was hallucinations and forgetfulness.
23:05Did you know that a lot of older people dream in black and white?
23:08The older the person, the more likely it is that their nightly adventures are colorless.
23:1225% of people over 50 years old report black and white dreams.
23:17Incredibly, scientists believe that this has to do with television.
23:20People who watched black and white programs in their childhood dream in the same color.
23:25These people are now older, and, despite watching color TV now,
23:29they still dream in black and white.
23:31Among younger people, only 12% dream in black and white.
23:35It's interesting to think what color people dreamed in before any kind of TV existed.
23:39Did black and white TV make people dream without color?
23:42Or did color TV make dreams more colorful?
23:45For 4% of Americans, sleep is a difficult time.
23:48These people are on the border of the real world and the world of dreams.
23:52This group of people are called sleepwalkers.
23:55In science, this condition is called somnambulism.
23:58People who have this disorder may not be in control of their activities while they sleep.
24:03This might sound like fun, but only at first glance.
24:07Sleepwalking is a serious risk.
24:09Imagine that you're asleep and your body gets out of bed and goes for a walk down the street.
24:13Things could get risky very quickly.
24:14You might even walk down to your local bank and try to withdraw some money.
24:18Pretty much everyone has dreamed of falling from a height and woken abruptly just before they hit the ground.
24:23This is called a myoclonic jerk.
24:25It often happens just as you're falling asleep, and we still don't really know the cause.
24:30One theory is that all of the muscles in your body completely relax,
24:34and your body begins to drift off before your mind has had a chance to get ready to sleep.
24:38You begin to dream, and your conscious brain panics, feeling like it's falling, and forces the body awake to save
24:45you.
24:46Luckily, it doesn't cause any damage and isn't indicative of any broader problems.
24:50It can be a bit annoying when you're wrapped up in a cozy bed, ready to doze off, though.
24:56On average, we have four to six dreams per night.
24:59Five minutes after waking up, you forget 50% of your dreams.
25:03And after 10 minutes, 90% of your dreams will have disappeared forever.
25:07Many people think they don't have dreams at all, but really, they just forget them all quickly.
25:12We all have dreams, but scientists don't know why exactly.
25:16Some believe that the brain uses dreams to process life experiences and the events of the day.
25:22Some psychologists see sleep as a monitor through which we can see ourselves.
25:26Have you ever had the same dream several times in a row?
25:29Maybe your subconscious mind is trying to tell you something.
25:32Many dreams are strange, very strange.
25:34There can be a lot of absurdity in them.
25:37Dreams shouldn't be taken literally, but they can be interpreted to give you useful clues about your life.
25:42Is a monster chasing you, or are you running away from a car?
25:46The subconscious mind warns you about the problems at work, school, or in a relationship.
25:51Maybe you're running away from something in the real world.
25:54One common dream is that you're standing on top of a mountain,
25:57or on the roof of a skyscraper, and feel scared or anxious.
26:01This might mean that you're ready to take on new heights, but are afraid to move forward.
26:06If you're flying in the sky or on an airplane in your dream,
26:09then it could show that you've defeated a big obstacle in your life.
26:12It might be time to look for new opportunities and new victories.
26:16Maybe you dreamed that you were walking through the house you grew up in,
26:19but you can't find a room.
26:21If this is the case, your subconscious mind might be warning you
26:24that you're suppressing part of your personality.
26:27Find a lost room.
26:28Perhaps this is a new hobby, work, or moving to another city.
26:32In your dream, are you late for a meeting,
26:34or did you oversleep your alarm clock?
26:37Stop running away from responsibility.
26:39It's time for you to take control of your life.
26:41Take the initiative, and you'll succeed.
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