Some people remember their dreams vividly well after they wake up. For others, the tenuous memory of dreams begins to slip away with the first flicker of wakefulness. An inability to remember our dreams does not lessen their impact. New research indicates that a powerful connection exists between our nightly dreams and our ability to process human emotions during the day.
In research presented at the annual conference of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, researchers at the University of California-Berkeley found that people require adequate sleep to understand complex emotions.
“Sleep essentially is resetting the magnetic north of your emotional compass,” Matthew Walker, director of the University of California-Berkeley Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab, told Time in an online article.
In the study, adults who took a 60- to 90-minute nap and reached REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, the sleep stage where most dreaming occurs, were more likely to identify positive emotions like happiness when looking at photos of other people. Those who did not achieve REM sleep or did not nap more often identified negative emotions like fear and anger.
Our response may be rooted in evolution. In previous research at Harvard Medical School, Walker found that activity in the prefrontal lobe, the brain area that controls emotion, diminished when people were sleep deprived. “If you’re walking through the jungle and you’re tired, it might benefit you more to be hypersensitive to negative things,” he explained. When mental energy lags, self-preservation forces us to focus on immediate threats. When we’re rested, we’re more likely to tune in to positive emotions associated with long-term survival like personal relationships and food.
REM, or dream, sleep “tries to ameliorate the sharp emotional chips and dents that life gives you along the way,” Walker explains. “It’s not that you’ve forgotten. You haven’t. It’s a memory of an emotional episode, but it’s no longer emotional itself. If you don’t let go of the emotion, what results is a constant state of anxiety.”
People who experience insomnia or other sleep disorders that prevent them from entering REM sleep lose the restorative power of sleep necessary to good health. When sleep problems interfere with the mind’s opportunity to process emotions, chronic insomnia can lead to the development of psychiatric disorders.
Yeah seems about right