Stanford Neuroscientist: Can’t Remember Your Dreams? Your Brain May Be Warning You!

0:00After many, many decades of people debating this, you might have figured out the reason why we dream.

0:04Yes, and it's a simple answer.

0:06So if you go blind, the visual cortex at the back of the brain gets taken over by hearing and by touch and by other things.

0:13In fact, our colleagues at Harvard did an experiment where they blindfolded and were only sighted people,

0:17and you could start seeing that takeover happening after 60 minutes.

0:20And that's when we realized, wow, the purpose of dreaming is to defend the visual territory from takeover from the other senses.

0:29For what fascinates me about brain plasticity and what I've devoted my career to is figuring out the way that we can be the sculptors of our own brains

0:36and how it gives us an opportunity to become the kind of person we'd like to be.

0:40And can we do that?

0:41Yes, here's the thing, your brain peaked the age of tube.

0:45Okay, so at the beginning, you've got fluid intelligence meaning you could learn anything.

0:50But now that you have grown up in this world, you've got crystallized intelligence meaning you know how to drive a car,

0:56you know how to operate a cell phone, you know how to run a business, and so your brain doesn't require as much change,