The function of dreams – those strange hallucinations during sleep – is still controversial. Are they pointless mental flare-ups, a byproduct of the nightly ‘cleaning’ of the brain or is there more to it?
A large team led by sleep anthropologist David Samson now believes they have found evidence for the theory that people practice emotions in dreams that they also encounter in real life and thus learn to deal better with social and other threats. Comparing the dreams of hunter-gatherers (the BaYaka and Hadza from Africa) with those from Western societies (Belgium, Canada, Switzerland) shows that both the Hadza and the BaYaka dream more often of danger (of people, disease, animals or natural circumstances), which they encounter much more often in their daily lives than people in Western societies. It is also striking that in these groups, who live in highly collectively organized societies, dreams are less likely to have nightmarish proportions.
More social anxiety
Among the BaYaka, the (helping) community plays a major role in the dreams and among the Hadza, remarkably few negative emotions appear in their dreams. Western dreams showed more social fear: exclusion, loss of status, shame and, for example, failing an exam. In these individualistic societies, dreamers also often have to solve their problems alone.
The researchers also looked at dreams of (Western) people with anxiety problems and it is striking that those nightmares are really dysfunctional: there are major dangers and fears but no solution or support. For them, the dreams do not help with the regulation of emotions but they seem to rather make it worse. There appeared to be a striking amount of fear and loneliness in the dreams of a group of Canadian students during corona. The research was published in Scientific Reports.
In both the West and Africa, dreamers were asked about their dreams and emotions immediately upon waking. Of ordinary dreamers in the West, a total of 356 dreams of 103 subjects were analyzed. Of people with a nightmare or anxiety syndrome, 281 dreams of 70 dreamers were analyzed. A total of 168 dreams were viewed from 24 Canadian students. The numbers of subjects among the BaYaka and the Hadza are much lower in comparison: a total of 75 dreams from 37 subjects – but still a particularly large number for populations where dreams have hardly ever been scientifically investigated until now. Various psychological mechanisms could work through dreams and be useful in everyday life: habituation (which makes you less likely to be startled by dangers in reality) or even extinction of strong emotions through frequent exposure.
A typical BaYaka dream is: “I was walking in the forest with my two adult daughters and one of my traps contained a porcupine. We took it to the village to eat it. It was a good dream.” A typical Hadza dream: “I dreamed that I fell into a well in the area of the Dtoga people. One of my friends helped me out.”
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