The History of Dreaming

The History of Dreaming.

The Sumerians in Mesopotamia left evidence of dreams dating back to 3100 BC.
The Mesopotamians believed that the soul moves out from the body of the sleeping person and actually goes to the places or the lands that the person is actually dreaming about and what the dreamer sees in his/her sleep. Sometimes the god of dreams is said to carry the dreamer to that imaginative place or even real place. Babylonians and Assyrians divided dreams into "good," which were sent by the gods, and "bad," sent by demons.




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Daydreaming

A daydream is a fantasy from vision that takes place during the day. Daydreams are usually happy and joyful thoughts. Usually people daydream about ambitions and put themselves in a place or situation they would like to be in. Choosing scenery and who should be there or who shouldn't be.
       Daydreaming has been called a lazy, non-productive pastime especially for young children and teenagers in school. When a student is in class and thinks of the holidays, he/she would daydream about what it would be like. There is a difference between imagining things and daydreaming. Your mind loses concentration to all your surroundings, your not asleep but your mind is somewhere totally different.
       Many artists, directors, musicians and screenplay writers find that daydreaming is also a source of inspiration for them. Some writers would find a nice quiet place where everything is calm and begin to both imagine and daydream about what it is they want to write about. The same also occurs to musicians all around the world, some may write about previous experience and some just write from the mind, the concious and sub-concious mind that is.

What is a dream ?

A dream is a series of images and emotions occuring without us letting it happen during certain stages of sleep. It has been said that dreaming is like going in to a trance.
     During a regular eight-hour sleep, the human body dreams for up to at least two hours. In your dreams, time goes much faster than it would if you were awake.



Why do we dream ?

In our dreams we use images more than words. We find ourselves doing things that are different than what we would do if we were awake. In dreams, we often find ourselves being chased or maybe even fighting someone such as an enemy of some sort. Antti Revonsuo, a scientist from Finland.said that we dream in order to rehearse behaviours of self-defence in the safety of nightime isolation.
     When were awake, it is very hard to remember every single image that we see. If we could remember every single image then it would clog our brain! Dreams sometimes show us images that we have forgotten until we are reminded while we are sleeping.Some images can be bad memories but some can also be good. The loss of a loved one can also show up in a dream regularly depending on how many memories you have with them. Dreams can create new memories with people whether they are dead or alive. However, these memories are not real of course. They can create good memories or bad memories with people. Although the choice is not ours.