Neuroscience and psychology
Evolutionary explanation of nightmares
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Ainhoa Pérez
Psychologist, Dietitian. Master's in Neuroscience, ICNS
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MPH, MSc.
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Millions of people suffer from sleep disorders such as insomnia and night terrors, significantly affecting their quality of life. The behaviors and cognitions adopted by individuals to manage acute insomnia and nightmares may, paradoxically, contribute to their chronicity.
Various authors have proposed that these sleep disorders may have played a survival role in our ancestral past. It has been suggested that an adaptive response to stress, whether real or perceived, characterizes these disorders. The persistence of these conditions could be explained by a failure in the extinction of fear and return to safety, indicating a dysfunction in memory processes.
In primitive societies, the need to maintain a state of hypervigilance was crucial for survival in the face of possible attacks by wild animals or hostile tribes. Although those times are long gone, the origin of these threat-related mechanisms is universal and timeless, with survival as their primary goal.
Electroencephalographic and cognitive studies have provided evidence for this adaptive function. Threat Simulation Theory posits that the evolutionary function of dreaming is to allow selective, "offline" simulation of threatening events, thereby promoting the development of skills to avoid threats in waking life.
From a phenomenological perspective, being chased or attacked has been shown to be the most common central framework of nightmares worldwide, supporting the universality of these threatening experiences in dreams. Neurophysiologically, a threat simulation system, primarily mediated by an activated amygdala during REM sleep, would be responsible for these realistic and behavioral threatening experiences in sleep, improving performance in real-life situations.
A study with 127 participants revealed that those with a higher incidence of fear in their dreams showed a reduced response in the insula, amygdala, and central nerve to fear-inducing stimuli while awake. Subjects with more frequent nightmares have better emotional regulation processes and greater activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, exerting inhibitory control over the expression of fear.
Although we do not face attacks from wild animals while we sleep today, we are exposed to situations that cause us anxiety while awake. The initial adaptive solutions of our ancestral past and their modern equivalents would automatically activate the same "fight or flight" systems.
Thus, dreaming can serve to simulate responses to threatening events in a completely safe environment, helping the individual to respond appropriately and efficiently to dangerous events in real life.
In conclusion, sleep disorders such as insomnia and night terrors, although problematic today, can be seen as vestiges of evolutionary adaptive responses designed to improve our ability to survive real-life threats.
Various authors have proposed that these sleep disorders may have played a survival role in our ancestral past. It has been suggested that an adaptive response to stress, whether real or perceived, characterizes these disorders. The persistence of these conditions could be explained by a failure in the extinction of fear and return to safety, indicating a dysfunction in memory processes.
In primitive societies, the need to maintain a state of hypervigilance was crucial for survival in the face of possible attacks by wild animals or hostile tribes. Although those times are long gone, the origin of these threat-related mechanisms is universal and timeless, with survival as their primary goal.
Electroencephalographic and cognitive studies have provided evidence for this adaptive function. Threat Simulation Theory posits that the evolutionary function of dreaming is to allow selective, "offline" simulation of threatening events, thereby promoting the development of skills to avoid threats in waking life.
From a phenomenological perspective, being chased or attacked has been shown to be the most common central framework of nightmares worldwide, supporting the universality of these threatening experiences in dreams. Neurophysiologically, a threat simulation system, primarily mediated by an activated amygdala during REM sleep, would be responsible for these realistic and behavioral threatening experiences in sleep, improving performance in real-life situations.
A study with 127 participants revealed that those with a higher incidence of fear in their dreams showed a reduced response in the insula, amygdala, and central nerve to fear-inducing stimuli while awake. Subjects with more frequent nightmares have better emotional regulation processes and greater activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, exerting inhibitory control over the expression of fear.
Although we do not face attacks from wild animals while we sleep today, we are exposed to situations that cause us anxiety while awake. The initial adaptive solutions of our ancestral past and their modern equivalents would automatically activate the same "fight or flight" systems.
Thus, dreaming can serve to simulate responses to threatening events in a completely safe environment, helping the individual to respond appropriately and efficiently to dangerous events in real life.
In conclusion, sleep disorders such as insomnia and night terrors, although problematic today, can be seen as vestiges of evolutionary adaptive responses designed to improve our ability to survive real-life threats.
References:
Perogamvros, L. (2018, December 19). An evolutionary-emotional perspective of insomnia and parasomnias. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/5vma2
* The news published on studies do not represent an official position of ICNS, nor a clinical recommendation.
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