Why Do We Need Sleep
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Why do we need sleep is the question? We spend at least one-third of our time sleeping. Sleeping is a required necessity. We all need to recognize that we need sleep. Sleep is a requirement for survival in life. It is not normal for a person to be sleepy at time when they are expected to be awake. Problems with sleepiness can be associated with difficulty concentrating, memory problems, and lack of energy, tiredness, lethargy, & emotional instability.
Problem with sleepiness can be deadly. There are thousands of crashes every year due to people getting lack of sleep. Lack of sleep may lead to poor school and work performance. It can also lead to difficulty in relationships. Getting one hour or less per night than needed may not have any effect on daytime functions.
Dreams can occur anytime during a sleep pattern. Dreaming can be defined as a sequence of sensations, images, emotions and thoughts passing through a sleepings person mind. Dreams occur in the stage of the sleep cycle REM or paradoxical sleep. There are two major stages of sleep, NREM and REM. A person who awakes from another stage of sleep cycle NREM do not describe their prior experience as dreaming.
Freud analyzed his own dreams as examples to prove his new theory of the psychology of dreams. Freud drew his conclusions from what I feel was conjecture. Most of his conclusions early in his career were all based on sex repressed sexual desires. As he matured he renounced many of his stronger claims and said well maybe everything is not about sex. As far as using dreams to interpret a mental illness I think dreams are a coping mechanism.
Freuds ideas that dreams are based upon fulfillment little support within modern psychology. Freud use and over use of symbolization within dreams, and the symbols as representational of sexual organs. Some modern psychological thought regarding dreams argues dreams are a type of filing exercise. The analysis of dreams and their relation to healthy mental life is pretty much restricted to psychoanalysis.
In my opinion the analysis and interpretations of dreams is not very useful when trying to attempt to correct disorderly thinking. I think when someone is dreaming they are really thinking while they are sleeping. Some people tend to think to hard, so when they go to sleep that is all they are thinking about is what they can do. Dreams can sometimes make people do things that they wouldnt normally do while they are awake. I tend to wake up in the middle of a dream. I often wonder why I wake up in the middle of a dream. Is it because I dont need to know what happens in my dreams, or is it something else. I guess we will never know why we dream the way we dream.