Senior Brandon Nelson dreamt about going to college to play football, and he thinks it was a sign. “I thought it was crazy to dream about something like that, but it really strengthened my decision to play football in college,” Nelson said. 

Like Nelson, we have all wondered why we dream what we dream. Many Psychologists and researchers have discovered the meanings behind the dreams. 

Sigmund Freud was one of the first psychologists to do so.

According to Owlcation, Freud’s psychodynamic approach to dreaming led to his theory of unconscious wish fulfillment. Nelson’s dreamed of a future and he put the plays in motion to achieve it.

There are many reasonings behind the way Nelson dreamed. One of the reasons could’ve been The cognitive approach. The cognitive approach focuses on how individuals think, understand, and what is happening around them.

The mental process affects people behaving in their environments. The neuroscience approach consists of the biological process of humans. The focus is how neurons are firing within the body and the brain. 

Psychologist Robin M. Ward based in Grand Rapids, Michigan thinks our dreams are an extension of our thought process. “On the side of dreams meaning something, dreams are thought to be simply the way we think when we’re asleep,” Ward said. 

Some scholars think that dreams are senseless, but there are theorists that believe that dreaming is meaningful. 

Nightmares, those horrifying realities, appear during REM sleep. REM sleep stands for rapid eye movement. This is where your eyes move quickly in different directions. Dreams typically happen during this time.

According to WebMD, only 1 of 2 adults have nightmares on occasion. An abundant number of triggers cause people to have nightmares. 

Those who experience anxiety, depression or PTSD, could attribute these diagnoses to the cause of their nightmares. In children, nightmares are more likely to happen because of a time in their lives that could’ve been extremely rough for them or taking medications that they have prescribed for them.

Nightmares can happen to anyone at any age, even though some may not even get any at all. Senior Elysia Medina has nightmares.

“It started a month ago, and I have a fear of falling asleep behind the steering wheel and going off of the road,” Medina said. She thinks her reasoning behind having nightmares has to do with recent stress that she experienced. 

Senior Hannah Smith does not have nightmares. “I have never had a nightmare before, I’ve only had good dreams.” Convinced, she thinks she doesn’t have nightmares because nothing tragic has happened during her life.

Ward thinks that “roughly one-third of my patients experience some type of problem with sleep.” As a psychologist, he has to figure out if his patients sleeping problems are dealing with more of organic problems or something that he can help himself. 

“Having a problem with sleep is a system that can be due to different conditions. Sleep problems are primary symptoms both for people with anxiety disorders and mood disorders.”