Dreams recombine elements of past and present experience to create novel associations and intense emotional content. Approximately 20 percent of dreams emphasize fear and about 20 percent emphasize wonder, forming a class of "big dreams." Strong dream emotions increase the likelihood of recall and can abruptly wake sleepers. Nightmares may function evolutionarily to alert and prepare individuals for potential waking threats. Wonder-filled dreams can produce expansive, awe-inspiring memories that linger. Emotional content from dreams can carry over into daytime mood and social interactions, sometimes following unexpected intervening events.
Here's a conversation starter: Plant yourself in the middle of a cocktail party and announce that you work with dreams. A flood of people will approach you, wanting to share their nighttime dreams. Half the ones you can expect to hear about will be terrifying nightmares, but the other half will likely be about the most expansive, awe-inspiring dream the person ever experienced, a memory they say will stay with them for a lifetime.
Nightmare and wonder are two dramatic ends of the dream spectrum, consistent with the findings of Bulkeley's (2016) Sleep and Dream Database (SDDb). The data in this comprehensive record demonstrate that approximately 20 percent of dreams highlight fear as their primary emotional content, while about another 20 percent of dreams feature wonder as their primary emotional theme. These numbers should not be surprising, since these dreams evoke more intense emotions or feelings, hence Bulkeley's use of "big dreams" to describe them.
The more intense the emotion or feeling, the more likely we are to remember them upon waking up. In fact, it is precisely these intense emotions and feelings that often jolt us out of the dream and into a waking state. Researchers posit that nightmares have an evolutionary basis to alert and prepare us for potential waking threats (Bulkeley, 2016).
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