Dreaming with your eyes wide shut: Dr Rubin Naiman's take on dream deprivation

Cultures across the world have spent time discussing what the significance of various dreams are Death is often seen as fear of loss rather than the clairvoyance of one or beginning of something new Different animals signify different turns in life In the modern day however sharing dreams is not much encouraged except with close friends or familyHeres where Dr Rubin Naiman thinks were going wrong Naiman a sleep and dream specialist at the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine says in an email interview I believe sharing dreams is a natural human instinct which we would all feel if we didnt rush off into our day Theres great personal value in sharing our dreamsNaiman is in the news for a paper titled Dreamless the silent epidemic of REM sleep loss Rapid Eye Movement refers to the period during which your eyes move quickly in different directions dreams typically occur during REM sleep In the paper Naiman claims that the modern day population is as dream deprived as it is sleep deprived And while its now agreed upon that sleep deprivation is harmful tothe body dream deprivation is equally soEdited excerpts from an interview with NaimanWhat got you interested in the subject of dreams as something that might affect human healthSince I was a child I have believed that dreams are meaningful As a professional I worked extensively with cancer patients and found that dreaming played a critical role in their healthWhat role does dreaming play in our bodys functioningIn one sense dreaming takes the body offline In deep sleep the body and brain are deeply relaxed but our voluntary muscles or not In REM sleep when dreaming our voluntary muscles are temporarily paralysed providing a greater depth of rest When the body is offline the brain processes experiences weve had duringthe dayWhat is a typical sleep pattern For instance in an eighthour sleep when do we get REM sleep Does the body dream even when we are not in REMApproximately 25 per cent of the nights sleep involves REM sleep when were dreaming We generally obtain most of our deep or delta sleep in the first part of the night And we experience most of our REM sleep and dreaming in the latter part of the night There is evidence for dreamlike experiences in nonREM sleep but these are less cohesive dreams REM sleep can be understood as a window through which dreaming becomes most visibleDoes everyone in REM state dreamGenerally speaking everyone in REM dreams although most of us fail to remember our dreamsWhy do some people remember dreams and others dontWe remember dreams for the same reason we remember anything that is by paying attention We live in a world where dreaming has been devalued and hence fewer people are attending to their dreamsIs what people dream important There are various people who analyse what you one dreams Does that too indicate healthI believe that dreams are as important as waking life experiences in shaping our sense of self This is independent of interpretation which usually reflects theoretical frameworks that may or may not apply to the individual There is some evidence that simply remembering dreams might help us heal from certain types of loss I believe that all dreams including nightmares can represent an internal healing process Too often we instinctively repress the dream potentially compromising its healing effectDr Rubin NaimanHow did you conduct your researchMy research was essentially a simple review and collation of data collected over three decadesCould you explain this Dream eyes transcend waking egoic perspectives opening us to greater social and spiritual consciousness and revealing a numinous world behind the worldWe typically view ordinary waking life through ordinary waking eyes We look at the world with intention which delimits what we see Both our perceptions and dreaming are much less informed by intention and more by reception Dreamstherefore allow us to see the forest for the treesHow can one get a more balanced sleep where dreaming is concernedThe questions is simple but the answer complex In short the quality of our dreams and that of our sleep are inextricably linked We must sleep well in order to dream well and dream well in order to sleep well