‘Cancer was diagnosed through a dream’: Can our brain really send messages while we sleep?

In the year 2011, Adeline saw a dream which changed her life.

She was feeling very sad and was missing her mother who had passed away three years ago.

Adeline (name changed), a resident of Hong Kong, tells that one night her mother came in her dream.

She said, “I remember I said, ‘Mom, I’m finally meeting you, how are you?’ And she said, ‘I’m fine, but I want to tell you something, get yourself checked as soon as possible.'”

Adeline says she took this strong message seriously and saw a doctor. Later he was diagnosed with stage-1 cancer, which was treatable because it was caught in time.

Adeline says, “I am very grateful, otherwise I would not have gone for this on my own.”

People in different cultures of the world have been analyzing their dreams for thousands of years. In the ancient Egyptian, Greek and Babylonian civilizations it was believed that dreams could give predictions.

In Abrahamic religions, dreams are considered “visions” sent from God. And in some tribal groups, dreams are seen as help from spirits (spirit helpers).

Adeline says she knew about the traditional Chinese belief that ancestors can give messages through dreams, but she never thought it could happen to her.

Now this fascination with dreams has reached online also. Users on Hong Kong’s Disqus forum share their dreams, while hundreds of people on Reddit report using ChatGPT to analyze their dreams.

But what do Adeline’s dreams tell us? How seriously should we take these? What do scientists and psychologists say on this?

Our brain likes to dream. According to Dr. Abidemi Otaiku, a neuroscientist at Imperial College London, UK, when we are in rapid eye movement (deep sleep) i.e. REM sleep, we are definitely dreaming.

This means that we can spend about one-third of our sleep time dreaming.

If we are unable to dream due to lack of deep sleep, then next time our brain shows us more vivid dreams i.e. dreams related to life. This process is called IM rebound.

“The body actually wants to dream and compensates for it when it gets the chance,” explains Dr. Otaiku.

Why we sleep still remains a mystery to science.

In general, researchers believe that sleep helps the brain rest and gives it time to organize memories from the day.

Scans (medical imaging techniques that examine the brain) reveal that the way our brain works changes during sleep, causing us to experience our dreams differently at that time.

When we are dreaming, our frontal lobes, which help us be rational, stop working.

At the same time, the limbic system related to emotions becomes very active.

“This is one reason why our dreams are often so strange and don’t make much sense,” says Dr. Otaiku.

Research shows that what we see in dreams can inspire us to take better decisions while we are awake.

A study found that people who had quit smoking saw themselves smoking in their dreams. There was less chance of them returning to this habit again.

The same effect was also seen in divorced people. Researchers found that people who dreamed about their ex were more mentally healthy a year later.

In fact, both studies found that negative dreams can sometimes help people deal with their problems more effectively than positive dreams.

American dreams researcher and psychologist Dr. Dylan Selterman says, “You are understanding that experience and dealing with it in a constructive way.”

Dreams can also help us solve problems. A Harvard University study found that when participants were asked to solve a puzzle, those who had dreamed about it performed better.

According to Selterman, this may be because the brain has more time to solve a problem, and dreams allow us to look at it in a more creative way.

“The dream just motivates them to make a small start in that direction,” says Selterman.

This does not mean that dreams reveal our hidden or true emotions, but rather that even while sleeping our mind is interested in the same things that we care about while we are awake.

Selterman says that he has seen people who broke up with their partners because of dreams, but these people had already told about their relationship being sour.

He explains, “The dreams just pushed them a little bit, they felt like they understood themselves better, but it was in line with what they already thought.”

So should we worry when we dream about someone we never even thought about?

“If you’re in a happy and loving relationship, and one night you dream that you’re with someone else, that’s OK, it’s normal,” says Selterman.

He adds, “You don’t have to feel guilty about it, it doesn’t have to mean anything special.”

When our dreams seem prophetic, and when they match real life events, we pay attention to them and remember them.

Dr. Abidemi Otaiku says, “Whenever you have dreams and they don’t match the real world, you forget them.”

“But there can be another reason for prophetic dreams, which is called “interoception”.

Dr. Otaiku explains, “Some people also call it our sixth sense. Basically, it is the brain’s ability to sense the internal state of the body.”

The parts of the brain involved in interoception often correspond to areas that are active in dreaming.

Some researchers believe that this could be the reason why our dreams sometimes seem to indicate diseases.

Dr. Otaiku adds, “This seems to be one possible mechanism that could explain these things.”

Research by neuroscientists like Dr. Otaiku suggests that our dreams may indicate the risk of some brain-related diseases.

He says, “The more often you have nightmares, the more your risk of developing dementia and Parkinson’s disease can increase.”

He has three theories regarding this. First, nightmares can be an early sign of these diseases.

Second, nightmares themselves can cause poor health. And thirdly, there could be a reason for both nightmares and these diseases, such as our genetics.

More research is still needed to know which of these is true.

Dr. Otaiku says that we should not be disappointed by these results, but should see it as an opportunity to improve our health.

In such a situation, things like reducing stress, getting good sleep and not watching scary movies before sleeping are helpful.

Some treatments also exist in severe cases. In image rehearsal therapy, patients practice changing the ending of their recurring nightmares.

The blood pressure medicine prazosin can stop nightmares, while normal dreams continue.

Otaiku adds, “It is entirely possible that treating nightmares could have an immediate and hopefully long-term positive impact on our health.”

Dr. Selterman warns that finding true meaning in dreams can be misleading, because it ignores the person’s own context.

He believes, “Sharks may mean something completely different to a marine biologist than to a dentist.”

However, he says that paying attention to the topics that appear in dreams can help us understand ourselves better.

He says, “Maybe you are repeatedly dreaming about a special person who is no longer in this world, or about a job that you want to get in the future.

Keeping track of these topics can give us a better understanding of ourselves and our relationships, because these are the things we dream about the most.

Dr. Selterman says, “If dreams have any importance, it is mostly visible in our social life.”

Adeline says she now pays more attention to her dreams and uses them as clues to understand her feelings.

She says, “We should only trust our emotions to know what message our dreams are giving. Look within yourself, you will get the answer.”

Published by Collective Newsroom for the BBC.