Sleep & Our Dreams

To understand why we sleep and why we dream, it helps to start with the basic purpose of these states. Sleep is vital for restoring both the mind and body, playing a crucial role in memory consolidation, emotional regulation, immune support and cellular repair. Dreaming, particularly during REM sleep, is thought to be part of this process, potentially helping the brain sort through emotions, process recent experiences, and, intriguingly, explore scenarios that stretch beyond our waking reality.

Dreams have captivated humanity for ages—people often want to know what their dreams mean. For some, there’s a fascination with remembering dreams or even re-entering them, while others wish to forget nightmares and shake off the residual stress they create in the body. Exploring dreams through neuroscience, neurotransmitters, sleep stages what the well-known Rick Rubin shares is two techniques that have proven surprisingly effective for remembering dreams, re-entering them or moving away from nightmares.

Although not backed by peer-reviewed studies, these techniques work.

The first tip is that if you wake up and want to remember a dream—or even re-enter it—keep your body completely still and your eyes closed. This strategy increases recall and can, at times, facilitate slipping back into the dream itself.

Rick Rubin’s second tip addresses nightmares.

If you wake up from a nightmare and feel anxious or disturbed, open your eyes, move around or even engage in light activity if it’s suitable. This physical movement seems to shift the body and brain away from the anxious state that accompanies nightmares. In some cases, just walking around briefly can help reset and release lingering tension, making it easier to either get back to sleep or go about your day.

So why do these simple techniques work? One possible reason has to do with the unique characteristics of REM sleep. During REM, we experience sleep atonia—a temporary paralysis that keeps our bodies still while our minds are highly active, especially with emotionally charged dreams. Rubin’s idea of keeping the body still and eyes closed after waking is essentially mimicking this state. Conversely, moving the body after a nightmare disrupts that REM-like state, helping us distance ourselves from the intense emotions.

Keeping a dream journal can also be useful for those interested in dream analysis, as it allows us to spot recurring themes or symbols across different dreams. Dream symbols are rarely a one-to-one match with real-life objects or people; they often carry unique meanings rooted in personal experiences, emotions and subconscious associations. By logging dreams over time, we gain insight into our inner emotional patterns and sometimes even creative or intuitive ideas that surface through symbolic narratives.

Handling nightmares involves another form of dream “hygiene”—moving out of the physical tension they create. While nightmares can be informative, they can also be distressing, and managing the body’s response is crucial for returning to calm. Interestingly, many of us feel an impulse to share our dreams with others, even if we know they might not be particularly interested or able to interpret them. This urge highlights the unique, often self-reflective nature of dreams; they’re stories we feel compelled to understand and sometimes seek to process by voicing them aloud.

While these tools are grounded more in experience than in controlled studies, they offer accessible ways to work with our dreams, whether by enhancing recall, learning to revisit them or managing the emotions they can stir up. Ultimately, dreams remain a captivating blend of memory, imagination and self-discovery, and tapping into their potential may lead to a richer understanding of both our conscious and unconscious selves.