Weird dreams train us for the unexpected, says new theory

Dreams can be bafflingly bizarre, but according to a new theory of why we dream, that’s the whole point. By injecting some random weirdness into our humdrum existence, dreams leave us better equipped to cope with the unexpected.

The question of why we dream has long divided scientists. Dreams’ subjective nature, and the lack of any means of recording them, makes it fiendishly difficult to prove why they occur, or even how they differ between individuals.

“While various hypotheses have been put forward, many of these are contradicted by the sparse, hallucinatory, and narrative nature of dreams, a nature that seems to lack any particular function,” said Erik Hoel, a research assistant professor of neuroscience at Tufts University in Massachusetts, US.

Inspired by recent insights into how machine “neural networks” learn, Hoel has proposed an alternative theory: the overfitted brain hypothesis.

A common problem when it comes to training artificial intelligence (AI) is that it becomes too familiar with the data it’s trained on, because it assumes that this training set is a perfect representation of anything it might encounter. Scientists try to fix this “overfitting” by introducing some chaos into the data, in the form of noisy or corrupted inputs.

Hoel suggests that our brains do something similar when we dream. Particularly as we get older, our days become statistically pretty similar to one another, meaning our “training set” is limited. But we still need to be able to generalise our abilities to new and unexpected circumstances – whether it’s our physical movements and reactions, or our mental processes and understanding. We can’t inject random noise into our brains while we’re awake, because we need to concentrate on the tasks at hand, and perform them as accurately as possible. But sleep is a different matter.

By creating a weirded version of the world, dreams may make our understanding of it less simplistic and more well-rounded. “It is the very strangeness of dreams in their divergence from waking experience that gives them their biological function,” Hoel said.

Ben Reilly wrote:The weirdest thing I ever had dream-wise was a series of dreams that started when I was around 5 and finally ended when I was about 23.

They started as a vague dream of falling, like we all get from time to time, but they became more detailed over the years until I was a person who threw herself off a cliff into the sea or ocean. The strangest part was that after I had the most detailed version of the dream, I never had it again.

eddie wrote:Horatio, I hear you! I have dreams like those you have mentioned. I’ve also dreamt about people and then found out they died. I’ve had recurring dreams about a certain house that fills me with absolute, pure fear, like there’s an evil presence there. It used to terrify me.

Maddog wrote:I actually had some weird dreams last night. It's almost like thinking about how I never dream, triggered me into dreaming.

I also woke up numerous times with cramps last night...

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:I actually had some weird dreams last night. It's almost like thinking about how I never dream, triggered me into dreaming.

I also woke up numerous times with cramps last night...

How wonderful!  Now try thinking.

Maddog wrote:I actually had some weird dreams last night. It's almost like thinking about how I never dream, triggered me into dreaming.

I also woke up numerous times with cramps last night...

Syl wrote:

Maddog wrote:I actually had some weird dreams last night. It's almost like thinking about how I never dream, triggered me into dreaming.

I also woke up numerous times with cramps last night...

Probably if you read and write on forums before you go to sleep it's fresh in your mind.

I took Quinine for night cramps for years, the same stuff that treats malaria, it did work, but taking any medication for years isn't good. I weaned myself off it, and now scarcely get them, they are horrible.

Maddog wrote:

Syl wrote:

Probably if you read and write on forums before you go to sleep it's fresh in your mind.

I took Quinine for night cramps for years, the same stuff that treats malaria, it did work, but taking any medication for years isn't good. I weaned myself off it, and now scarcely get them, they are horrible.

Night cramps aren't a huge issue for me. I rode 40 miles yesterday, didn't drink enough water, had zero electrolytes and didn't snack along the way.  I'm on a diuretic for BP which further dehydrates me. My cramps usually start about an hour after a ride and continue for several hours after.

It's one of the downsides of a hot climate.  

Syl wrote:

Maddog wrote:

Night cramps aren't a huge issue for me. I rode 40 miles yesterday, didn't drink enough water, had zero electrolytes and didn't snack along the way.  I'm on a diuretic for BP which further dehydrates me. My cramps usually start about an hour after a ride and continue for several hours after.

It's one of the downsides of a hot climate.  

Just drink more water....

I got my blood pressure down to 120/70, I bought my own monitor and it's been fine everytime I take it.
I thought yours was OK without taking medication.

Maddog wrote:

Syl wrote:

Just drink more water....

I got my blood pressure down to 120/70, I bought my own monitor and it's been fine everytime I take it.
I thought yours was OK without taking medication.

Just drinking more water really wont do it.  You can't get potassium, sodium and magnesium from water, and those are the elements that you lose after hours of pedaling in the heat.

In the winter, water alone does the trick.

I wish mine was fine without meds.  

Syl wrote:

Maddog wrote:

Just drinking more water really wont do it.  You can't get potassium, sodium and magnesium from water, and those are the elements that you lose after hours of pedaling in the heat.

In the winter, water alone does the trick.

I wish mine was fine without meds.  

Watermelon juice is good, or mix those ingredients into your water.......or cycle when it's cooler.

Maddog wrote:

Syl wrote:

Watermelon juice is good, or mix those ingredients into your water.......or cycle when it's cooler.

Cooler and Texas are kind of difficult.  

There are a lot of products a avaliable.  I just need to stock up and take them.

Syl wrote:

Maddog wrote:

Cooler and Texas are kind of difficult.  

There are a lot of products a avaliable.  I just need to stock up and take them.

You should live here for a summer....you may appreciate your hot weather more.
It's hardly stopped raining in Manchester for 2 weeks, flooding in some areas, and we were getting hard frosts till a few nights ago....it's supposed to be  spring.

Maddog wrote:

Syl wrote:

You should live here for a summer....you may appreciate your hot weather more.
It's hardly stopped raining in Manchester for 2 weeks, flooding in some areas, and we were getting hard frosts till a few nights ago....it's supposed to be  spring.

We actually have about a week of rain forcast. I'll take it because I know whats around the corner..

HoratioTarr wrote:

eddie wrote:Horatio, I hear you! I have dreams like those you have mentioned. I’ve also dreamt about people and then found out they died. I’ve had recurring dreams about a certain house that fills me with absolute, pure fear, like there’s an evil presence there. It used to terrify me.

Oddly, I've had that as a recurring dream.   There's always a house, and always one room that holds something dreadful, some kind of presence.  I get really angry with it too when it attacks me.   I always confront it, as though it's up to me to get rid of it and move it on once and for all.   I'm sure Freud would have a field day with me.   I have a friend who has even weirder dreams...she's very psychic.   My husband, on the other hand, barely dreams at all.   Sometimes, I wake up and feel as though I've not slept at all.