Understanding and interpreting dreams - babies and dreaming
Understanding how we dream and why we dream is vital to proper
dream interpretation and analysis, and one of the most
fascinating areas of dreaming involves the study of babies and
young children. Scientists have known for some time now that
babies, and all other human beings, dream every night. Many
studies have even suggested that babies begin dreaming before
they are born.
What these babies dream about, of course, is still a mystery,
but a recent study has shown that babies spent considerably more
of their sleep time engaged in dream sleep. In the study, babies
were found to spend approximately two thirds of their sleep time
in the REM state, compared to an average of 15% to 20% for most
adults.
In trying to understand the importance of dream sleep to young
babies, scientists have theorized that REM sleep plays an
important role in the development of the baby's brain. One
reason for this theory is that babies born prematurely have been
seen to spend an even greater percentage of their sleep in the
REM state than full term babies. Premature babies can spend up
to 80% of their sleep time in the REM state.
As babies become older, and the brain matures, the amount of
time spent in dream sleep begins to decrease. By the time the
average baby is one year old, the percentage of sleep time spent
in the REM sleep has dropped to 35%. This finding is thought to
suggest that REM sleep is important to the baby's mental
development. It is known that adults deprived of REM sleep
suffer from a variety of psychological problems, so it makes
sense that REM sleep and mental development are connected.
As a matter of fact, many scientists and dream researchers
believe that dreaming is a way that the mind is exercised and
provided with much needed stimulation. Therefore, babies, who do
not get as much stimulation as older people, need more
stimulation thorugh the dream state. As babies get older and
begin to experience more stimulation from the real world, they
need less stimulation and mental exercise from the dream world.
Knowing that babies dream is certainly important to parents,
just as understanding that young children often suffer from
nightmares is important for parents to be able to soothe and
comfort the fears experienced by their sons and daughters.
Dream research has revealed that babies can have bad dreams and
nightmares as well as positive dreams. Therefore, when the baby
wakes up crying in the middle of the night, it may be the result
of a bad dream and not gas, hunger of the need for a diaper
change. In most cases, comforting the child will help he or she
to fall asleep.
As children get older, it is easier for parents to at least
understand the nightmares they may suffer from. Nightmares
usually begin to occur by the time the child is three years old,
and they most often continue until the child reaches the age of
six or seven. These types of nightmares often take the form of a
fear of monsters in the closet, under the bed or in other hidden
places.
No one knows for sure why we dream, but the fact that young
children, and even babies, spend much of their lives in dream
sleep is proof of the universal nature of dreaming and the
importance of dream interpretation.