Rosehip Mole asked, and Nib — askNib's tutor — drew the answer live at a whiteboard. This is the spoken transcript; enable JavaScript to watch it drawn.
How do dreams work?
Every night you cycle through stages of sleep, and dreams happen mostly during one special stage called REM.
REM stands for rapid eye movement — your eyes dart around under closed lids while your brain lights up almost like it's awake.
Inside the brain, the emotional center called the amygdala fires strongly, feeding vivid images and feelings into your dream.
Meanwhile the logical planning region, the prefrontal cortex, quiets down — that's why dreams feel strange, jumbled, and rules don't apply.
At the same time, the brain replays the day's memories, sorting what to keep — sewing them into these strange, dreamlike stories.
So a dream is your brain's own light show — strong emotion, weak logic, and old memories all mixed live while your body rests.
Dreams are just your resting brain replaying memories with big feelings and no logical filter — a nightly story it tells itself.