Scientists explained the purpose of the nightmares — you can't go without

With nightmares at least once in life faced by everyone. If you do not take into account superstitions, to explain their nature is not easy. Since ancient times people pondered this question, and to find the answer managed more recently, scientists from Switzerland. It turns out that nightmares are not meaningless and they dream of us for our own good.

Neuroscientists at the University of Geneva have finally found out what is the meaning of the nightmares. In their study, they took as a basis the theory of modeling threats, which States that every dream is a process, with important neurobiological function.

Research work in this direction consisted of two stages. First, neuroscientists examined in 18 volunteers during sleep using electroencephalography (EEG). During sleep, these people have measured the activity of different areas of the brain, while periodically interrupting sleep.

Participants in the experiment several times shook during sleep and asked what they saw for a moment before waking up. Thus, physicians were able to correlate EEG data with stories of people and determine what areas of the brain were active during certain dreams.

It turned out that fear caused by nightmares, arises in the anterior cingulate cortex and insular lobe of the brain. These areas are responsible for our social behavior and consciousness, and in addition, they have formed a reaction to a real threat in a time when we are awake.

For the second part of the study drew 89 volunteers. These people instructed a week to keep a diary of their dreams, or rather, to record the stories of the dreams that they had seen. In the same journal, volunteers briefly described their emotions and feelings from what they saw. It could be fear, joy, frustration, anxiety and other more complex feelings.

The study's author Virginia Sterpenich commented on the results of the work of his team at a press conference for journalists in the following way:

Had the benefit of this discovery of modern medicine? No doubt. Scientists have found a way to use his open — they plan to use the dreams for the treatment of depressive and anxiety States. Neuroscientists would stimulate certain areas of the brain to cause a patient to dream of nightmares and this will make it less susceptible to the negative in reality.

Now we know what they think about the meaning of dreams scientists who study the brain. But psychologists, followers of the famous Carl Gustav Jung, a point of view on the nature of sleep.