Have you ever had one of those dreams when you felt like falling from a high place and then you wake up suddenly. If any of you have had one of those dreams before, then you should know it's not a pleasant feeling. Before diving into theories and what not behind the "falling dreams," let's first get to know what exactly happens during a state of dreaming.
Dreams mainly occur during during the REM (rapid eye movement) stage of sleep. The lengths of dreams can vary from a couple seconds to as long as half an hour. It is stated that most dreams, if not all, relate to real-life experiences, therefore, memory processing takes place during that state of sleep. This is also probably why my high school psychology teacher recommended to finish studying moments before going to sleep. This is because the most recent memories (studying) would be processed and organized during REM sleep. Besides, information processing, there are other various theories about what dreams mean.
One of those theories belong to Sigmund Freud. His school of thought is termed Freudian Theory of Dreams. Basically what Freud believed was that dreams revealed inner desires, anxieties and repressed childhood memories. No matter what the dream he also believed that they revealed a release of sexual tension. You don't have to agree with what Freud says, but these are just the thoughts from a late psychologist.
Some various other theories of dreams come from a more religious and cultural indications. Many dreams from ancient historical figures have indicated passing omens or signs of fortune or bad luck. Other civilizations also claim dreams are a part of the human soul and gods visit the soul during the people's dreams.
The latter half of these theories based on culture and religious values are probably stretching it, but that's because we now live in a society with modern day science. To get on the with the concepts behind the falling dreams, I believe that its an indication of restlessness and warning. Dreams of falling asleep usually wake you up, therefore there has to be some discrepancy between the brain waves during REM sleep. Maybe its something important that you forgot to do, or maybe it could something important that is to come. After all, during REM, your brain processes and organizes information received during the day. It may have caught something you may not have during the day and organized in a way where a new type of memory was created based off the sequence of previous memories.
