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Dreams seem to be a way for the subconscious mind to sort out and process all the input and problems that are encountered in waking life. Therefore, a scientist could be working on a problem... say the structure of the DNA molecule. Then said scientist could have a dream in which he sees two snakes interwining in a double helix. When he wakes, he has discovered the structure of the DNA molecule.
It was not \"a\" scientist. It was F.A. Kekeulé who discovered the structure of the DNA molecule. But dreams were also a help for other great men, for instance Samuel Taylor Coleridge who wrote one of his best poems inspired by a dream, or Guiseppe Tartini who had a dream in which, like Faust, he sold his soul to the Devil. In his dream the devil began to play the most wonderful melody he had ever heard and awaking from his dream he seized his violin and tried to play the piece he had just heard. You can say that this dream gave birth to \"The Devil\'s Sonata\".
Students who study and get some REM sleep, retain the information better and for longer periods of time than students who study longer but have no sleep. This is because the brain needs time to process the information, form sensible pattern out of it, and place it in long term memory.
Dreams can also improve your emotional well-being, reduce stress, improve your creativity, and provide a playground for your mind while your body recovers and repairs itself.
There seems to be a biological and a psychological need for REM sleep, though it is not clear why. Subjects who are deprived of REM sleep for a night by constant awakening upon entering each REM cycle increase their REM sleep the following night. This is called the REM rebound effect.
Despite the apparent need for REM sleep no serious mental effects seem to result from REM deprivation, at least within a six-month time span. Well, rats died after a 3 weeks deprivation, but depriving some depressed people of REM dreaming alleviates their depressions. This extreme is just another example for the greatness of our ignorance concerning the dream territory. (Or maybe the simple fact that you can\'t compare human beings to rats? :o)
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