Radiolab sleep

Why do we dream? Apparently our brains labels certain problems as being hard by virtue of attaching certain emotions to them and then decides to work on it during dreams. It tries to solve problems by free associating the concepts and if there are any solutions to the problems in our past. I wonder if the sense of consciousness that exists during that moment is the same as one we having while awake. Is it a different kind of consciousness?

The function of sleep is to break connections that we have made while we were awake so that we remember better. This is possible because during sleep, a current of electrical activity begins from the back of the brain and washes over all of neurons during sleep. It starts pruning various connections just like a gardener prunes the lawn. The result is that even though there were lots of activities being represented in our brain for the previous day, pruning this information lowers the volume on all the activities and makes them more bearable. There was information on what you ate, where you were driving, what you were trying to learn etc. By reducing information on all of these activities, only activities that were most important to you; activities with emotional connotation get labeled as important, will stand out. Thus, information that you were trying to learn will stand out more.