Dreams are common phenomenon. According to Human Brain Project experts we dream four to six times a day on average. We forget more than 95% of our dreams. You will remember a few each month. Our most vivid and memorable dreams occur during REM sleep which begins about 90% minute after you fall asleep. The exact purpose of dreaming is still a mystery to scientists. According to human brain projects strange dreams may help your brain learn better.
A new study from the University is Switzerland reveals that dreams which are abnormal help our brain learn and extract general from previous experiences. The importance of sleep and dreams in learning and memory has long been acknowledged. The researchers used simulations of the brain to model how different sleep phase affect learning. They took inspirations from a machine learning technique called Generative Adversarial Networks ( GANs). In GANs two neural network compete with each other to generate new data from the same dataset which generated simple pictures of objects and animals. This operation produces new artificial images which can look superficially realistic to a human observer.
The researchers then stimulated the cortex during three distinct states: wakefulness, non- REM sleep and REM sleep. During wakefulness the model is exposed to pictures of boats, cars, dogs and other objects. In nor- REM sleep the model replays the sensory with some occlusions. REM sleep create new sensory inputs through the GANs. “ Non-REM and REM dreams become more realistic as our model learns,” explains Jakob Jordan, senior author, and leader of the research team. It was when made less creative accuracy of classifier decreased. When the NREM sleep phase was removed these representations tended to be more sensitive.
It should not be surprising that dreams are bizarre and this bizarreness serves a purpose. The next time you are having crazy dreams do not try to have a deeper meaning. Your brain may be simply organizing your experiences.
