Most of us forget our dreams as soon as we wake up. However, during the New Year holidays, the situation changes – more and more people remember vivid, unusual and interesting dreams. Rambler will talk about factors that directly affect the structure of sleep and the mechanism of dream memory.
Insomnia mode
During the Tet holidays, most people's sleep schedules change significantly. Going to bed late, sleeping long in the morning, and napping in the afternoon lead to desynchronization of circadian rhythms. Sleep becomes less deep: the number of brief awakenings increases, the proportion of light sleep stages increases, and the transitions between stages become more frequent and uneven.
From a neurophysiological point of view, such changes are extremely important. Dreams primarily occur during the rapid eye movement (REM) phase, but their memorability is not directly related to that phase but to the moment of awakening. Research shows that people who remember their dreams often have shorter waking hours during the night.
In the work of French neuroscientist Perrin Ruby and co-authors, published in Border communicationsusing polysomnography, it has been shown that people who remember dream details spend more time awake in their dreams than people who have almost no memory of their dreams. In other words, the less consistently you sleep, the higher your chances of catching a dream the moment you wake up later.
Who is a short sleeper and how can they get 4 hours of sleep a day?
Ale
Alcohol is one of the important factors affecting sleep during the beginning of the new year. Although it may help you fall asleep more easily, its overall effect on nighttime sleep is considered detrimental. Alcohol alters normal sleep structure, increasing the number of awakenings in the second half of the night and reducing its restorative value.
Large reviews and meta-analyses of the effects of alcohol on sleep suggest that it contributes to sleep fragmentation and reduced sleep quality, especially when the body metabolizes ethanol. This means a person can sleep longer but with poorer sleep structure.
Irregular sleep, as we mentioned above, increases the likelihood of recalling dreams. In addition, alcohol affects emotional regulation and limbic system activity, which can add to the emotional color of dreams. As a result, dreams are not only more likely to be remembered, but are also considered more disturbing, surreal, or eventful.
Eat too much
New Year's holidays are traditionally accompanied by late dinners, fatty foods, lots of sweets and unusual food combinations. All this increases the load on the digestive system at night. Physiological discomfort – heartburn, heaviness, fluctuating glucose levels – can disrupt sleep continuity, even if the person is not aware of it.
The relationship between sleep quality, bodily sensations, and dream content is being actively researched. Survey studies have shown that people are more likely to associate disturbing, intense, or unpleasant dreams with nighttime discomfort and certain dietary factors, especially food sensitivities or sleep disorders.
It is important to emphasize: we are not talking about a direct connection “a certain food – a specific dream plot” but about an indirect mechanism. Physiological stress enhances micro-awakenings, and they make dreams more accessible to memory and more subjectively vivid.
Lighting in the bedroom
During the period before and after Tet, artificial light is often turned on in the bedroom – garlands, night lights, candles. Continuously active light sources create so-called “hypersomnia”: alternating sleep and short periods of wakefulness. These are almost ideal conditions for remembering dreams.
To prevent dreams from disappearing from memory, the brain needs to quickly activate the awakening mechanism. Even a few seconds of paying attention to reality can commit a dream to long-term memory. Therefore, on holidays, dreams not only become different but are often kept and remembered in more detail.
Emotions are too saturated
Dreams are formed from the emotional and cognitive material of the previous day. The end of the year and the beginning of the new year is a time of increased social activities, summarizing results, expectations, traveling, meeting relatives, and talking about the past and future. This creates emotional overload and increases the number of meaningful experiences.
Neurobiological models of sleep suggest that during dreaming, the brain processes emotionally meaningful information by integrating it with existing memories. As such material becomes more abundant, the likelihood of complex, multi-layered and non-linear plots increases, which in awakening are considered too detailed or unusual.
We've talked before about how the pre-New Year's hormonal surge works.
