Seam of a Dream

What causes dreams?

Dreaming is a state in between being conscious and unconscious. It is a state of subconsciousness, as you are perceiving experiences without being consciously aware. If you were consciously aware of the experiences, then you would likely be able to remember dreams about as well as you remember being awake. Consciousness and accuracy of memory access are fairly distinctly correlated and connected. Also, if you were consciously aware during a dream, you would be able to make conscious decisions, as you do while awake. There is the state of lucid dreaming, where you are mostly aware and able to make decisions, and this seems to be a rare state, in between subconscious and conscious, where some consciousness is used.

So, regular dreaming being a state of subconscious brain activity, is arguably similar to an animals normal mind state. The difference would be a lack of sensory input to act as a trigger for memory access, while dreaming. When an animal is awake (or perhaps a human drugged/ drunk enough), their active sensory input is the regulator for triggering which memories are accessed, and which reactions are taken. When someone (or an animal) is dreaming, there are very limited senses inputting data to trigger memory access.

With a lack of active sensory stimulation, the brain moves on to be triggered by the most recent sensory input, which then accesses new memories resembling the most recent. From recent activities (likely throughout recent hours of being awake), the subconscious mind will default to memories which were very recurrent with a well worked neural pathway. From that point on, while dreaming, the most profound sensory trigger for which memory to access next, is usually whichever memory is currently being accessed in the dream. This creates a seemingly bizarre, inconsistent, ambiguous, and unorganized stream of memories, as 1 indistinct memory triggers another. Since the brain is not accessing all the neurons of entire memories accurately, only portions of memories are accessed. If the brain is accessing a memory of an overall scenario, but details of the memory are inaccurate (as those details may have been deemed unimportant by feedback), then the mind seems to fill in the details with portions from other memories. Portions used to fill in detail are likely based on the most often recurring memory of that detail. With numerous portionate details within an overall streamed scenario, a lot of triggers to other memories and other portions are likely to occur, making dreams all the more chaotic.

While awake, some memories are linked as most important by instinctual emotional reinforcement. These memories connected to significant emotional feedback, are more likely to be accessed as a result of another similar memory being accessed. Any sensory experience is more likely to trigger the resembling memory, since it was saved more accurately and distinctly, by emotional reinforcement. This is the basis function for subconscious brain activity, as is the cause of trauma as a significant negative memory, or addiction as a significant positive memory. Trauma or an extremely negative memory, is more likely to be accessed by sensing a similar scenario which triggers it. So that negative memory is more likely to be triggered and accessed during a dream, as well as while awake. With these memories, comes the negative emotion connected to them, such as fear (ie. a nightmare).

So if dreams are initiated and filled in with the most recent and recurrent wakeful memories, but more probable to be driven in a direction of what the mind has deemed most important, they should be a good hint at what you are regularly dealing with and concerned about. Dreams seem to be an illustration of our subconscious mind.