Question: how do we get dreams while we are sleeping?

Hayley Moulding answered on 14 Mar 2016:

Awesome question. So, when we sleep the activity of our brain changes and sometimes this activity is nearly the same as when we are awake, other times the activity is a lot less and we sleep really deeply. When we are in a state of sleep which is a lot like being awake, we get dreams. When you dream do you ever dream of things that you have done the week before or that day? Do you dream about someone you saw or a film you saw? This isn’t coincidence! What is happening is our brains are going over the activity we have done during the day and trying to remember the important parts – trying to make memories. We do this memory making when we have deep sleep, but because our brain is replaying our memories of the day we can then sometimes dream of these activities. Our brain has been playing the same image again and again to make memories but now when we have more activity in our brain we start to see images of our day again. We also dream about people like One Direction or Justin Bieber sometimes too because we have heard some of their music before bedtime. What is interesting though is that we don’t know exactly why we dream. Have you ever done something like fly in a dream? Or been a pop star for the day? We are allowed to do things in our dreams that we don’t do each day. Maybe it is a way of sorting through our emotions and ideas we have in a safe environment. It is better to try and fly in a dream rather than in real life!!