Rahul Jandial

Confession: I’ve been obsessed with dream science for a decade. In fact, I started keeping a detailed dream journal seven years ago and have since logged several thousand sequences. “This is Why You Dream” is among the half-dozen books I’ve read on the subject. It's among the most enlightening.

Jandial, a neuroscientist and brain surgeon, aptly writes the following: “You may have thought that someone who has spent a career immersed in the brain would reject dream interpretation as nothing more than pop psychology.” He goes on to explain why he has made such effort to explore the notion that our dreaming and waking selves are not separate. He maintains that dreams provide a unique portal to self-reflection and understanding.

True, Jandial does tend to go on tangents in some sections. Nevertheless, these tangents were so intriguing that I didn't mind meandering down those divergent paths. What’s more, given the healthy dose of neuroscience in this book, it’s a remarkably “accessible” book to non-experts.

Some criticism focuses on the fact that the book doesn’t always provide concrete, black-and-white answers or conclusions. To me, that’s what makes dream science so fascinating. Even the most renowned researchers are still in the exploration stages of truly understanding the science and psychology.

Consider this the end of my review. I now include about a dozen thought-provoking nuggets from the book for those readers who are true dream science diehards:

— The link between the dreaming mind and our physical health is far more intertwined then we could have imagined. The author cites evidence that dreams can predict the pending decay of the brain and nerves years before any diagnostic tests. Example, aggressive dream enactment/combative dreamers are common threads that run through people who are later diagnosed with Parkinson’s (Apparently, no one knows exactly why there seems to be this connection between our dreaming mind and health.)
— There has been a remarkable consistency of dream topics across cultures and centuries.
— “Dreams are a different way of thinking. It is their very wildness that gives them the potential to be transformative.” The creative process is much like the dreaming process in that we explore new ideas and look at things from different perspectives.
— “Out of the box" creative thinking is facilitated in dreams because the brain biologically adjusts adrenaline and other physiological factors to allow us to think more creatively and less reactively than we would in a real-life pressure cooker setting. Creativity dreaming allows us to take actions we might not otherwise take. Experts call it divergent thinking. Dreaming can free us from a preconceived idea. We can harness our nocturnal narratives for positive creative purposes. Who knew that dreams were the inspiration for two of Stephen King’s most famous novels: “Misery” and “The Shining”?
— We actually learn to dream. Research indicates that very young children under five don’t dream or have very primitive dreams that are more like still photos. By seven or eight, children become more active participants in their dreams.
— Some believe that dreams serve a real purpose of being a “threat rehearsal' that allows us to practice responses to real life challenges — almost like a virtual simulation. One example: students who were on the verge of taking entrance exams were asked about dreams. Of those who recalled dreams, many recalled nightmares where they missed the test, failed it or had their eyeglasses broken just as they were about to take it. Interestingly, students who dreamed about the test did 20% better than those who could not recollect dreaming about the test. The hypothesis is that those dreams gave students a “cognitive benefit.”
— Dreams assist with emotional regulation that benefit us in our waking lives.
— Other theories are the dreams serve as a “nocturnal therapist," example: people going through divorces would dream negative thoughts about their spouse, and this would help to diffuse the situation in the coming days.
— “Overfitted brain hypothesis:” Dreams exist to help generalize what we have learned in our waking lives.
– Some experts believe we have a separate memory system for dreams. Even when we cannot recall them, they live somewhere else in our brain.
— Changes in the patterns of our nightmares should raise an alert that something deeper might be wrong involving our mental health.
— The book ends by raising a chilling question: Will scientific and technological advances make it possible to accurately determine what people are dreaming and perhaps even make a detailed video of these dreams? Now for many folks, this prospect would be a true nightmare.… (more)