Have you ever had a nervous dream ahead of an exam or a job interview? Or a nightmare about arriving at work without your clothes on? It may be unpleasant at the time — but this nocturnal torture session could actually put you at an advantage.
When you dream, says the neurosurgeon Dr Rahul Jandial, your brain works in a way it simply never does in waking hours. “It’s [dreams’] very wildness that gives them the potential to be transformative,” he writes in his new book, This Is Why You Dream.
Dreaming has several important functions. It helps us mull over what we’ve learnt in our waking life, reshuffling our memories and thoughts to allow us to interpret them in a new light — which may explain why French research found that students who dream about an exam in advance score 20 per cent higher when they sit down to take it. And it can act as a night-time therapy session. The classic anxiety dream about turning up somewhere naked has a purpose: according to research by the University of California, Berkeley, we may feel less fear of embarrassing experiences the night after having such a dream.
But Jandial, 51, a neurosurgeon at the City of Hope hospital in Los Angeles, goes further. He believes dreaming is a vital part of our evolution — in fact, he thinks it’s so important that it may even be the reason that humans sleep. “It’s a wild idea, right?” he says when we meet in London.
One of Jandial’s key beliefs is that with a little practice it is possible to train yourself to control your dreams — and therefore to harness their power. When the stakes are high, Jandial does this: the night before a complex operation, he settles down in bed and tries to visualise the structures of his patient’s brain. “As I drift off I try to look at the anatomy and float around it,” he says. “I’m not thinking about the operation step by step, I’m just trying to focus on the beautiful, complex anatomy of the brain.”
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When he falls asleep, he does not dream about actually holding a scalpel. Instead, he finds himself “navigating a forest, or scuba diving through tunnels, or sailing and setting a trajectory” When, the next morning, he steps into the operating theatre, Jandial insists he is better prepared as a result of these nocturnal adventures. “Rehearsing these skills in my dreams makes me more adaptable, more imaginative, more creative in my solutions.” He calls it “cross-training for the brain”.
You don’t have to be a neurosurgeon to do this. The trick is focusing on the “entrance” and “exit” points — falling asleep and waking up. If you have a problem you want to overcome, focus on it as you drift off, as he does the night before surgery. In the morning, embrace that phase between being asleep and awake. “I try to extend that blurry stage,” he says. “Enjoy the luxury of bed and try to hold on to a few thoughts — don’t reach for your phone. And then, after a few minutes, I’ll write them down.”
We may be asleep, but when we dream our brain definitely isn’t resting. Electrical impulses dance across the cerebral cortex, the outermost layer of the brain, and neurons fire thousands of times a second. “The dreaming brain is not calm,” Jandial explains. “It’s not resting. The body might be shut down but dreaming burns energy. The brain — this tiny organ — uses 20 per cent of the body’s blood supply.” If someone dreams about running, for example, the motor cortex is activated in the same way as it would be when they actually exercise.
It can also trigger creativity. There are two brain states: the “executive network” of the waking brain, which is responsible for logic, order and day-to-day living; and the “imagination network”, in which the normal rules of space and time are ignored and the mind can run wild. When we dream the executive network is turned off and the imagination network kicks in: “There is no reason or logic and we can accept our dreams’ narrative without question,” Jandial says. It’s not the same as letting your mind wander in the shower — he calls this brain state “high intensity training” for the mind. “Without it, the waking brain and the executive network make us too rigid.”
This might also explain why researchers have found that taking a nap of 30-90 minutes can improve learning and cognitive function when people become worn down by repetitive tasks.
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In an evolutionary sense dreaming keeps us from becoming “overfitted” — too utilitarian, too evolved towards the functions of daily living. “It keeps the corners of our mind and brain tissue in use,” Jandial says.
It could also function as a red flag for mental and neurological illness. This is an undeveloped field but one Jandial believes holds great promise. The most striking example is that of “dream enactment behaviour”. When men in their fifties regularly act out their dreams — for example punching someone while fast asleep and dreaming of a fight — they are very likely to develop Parkinson’s, Lewy body dementia or multiple system atrophy in the next few years. “Not just sometimes but almost always,” Jandial says. “It is mind-blowing.”
In fact researchers have found that within 14 years of a diagnosis of dream enactment behaviour, 97 per cent will develop one of these neurological diseases. Eventually this knowledge could be used to help diagnose these diseases years in advance. Jandial believes dreams should be treated as a medical “vital sign” — such as blood pressure or heart rate — to be assessed as an indicator of all-round mental health.
Jandial thinks we could learn a lot about ourselves by taking the time to take a more active role in our dreams. “Our dreams are whispering to us, flirting with us, and we don’t pay any attention,” he says. “It is not happening incidentally. You can’t go there with the waking brain. It only happens when you dream. It’s available to everybody and it’s free. If you want to know more about yourself, pay attention to that brain state.”
This Is Why You Dream by Rahul Jandial (Cornerstone £18.99). To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members
