Psychologist Roser Gort, a collaborator at the Estivill Sleep Clinic in Spain, explained in an interview with the Infosalus portal that dreaming of situations contrary to one's own values does not mean one wants to carry them out. According to the specialist, the brain can construct scenarios involving infidelity or other problematic actions, including the associated emotions and reactions, but this experience during sleep does not equate to a conscious intention.
Gort describes dreams as a space where memories, emotions, fears, desires, and recent experiences blend together, with less intervention from logic. To illustrate, she mentions that dreaming about stealing a car and being chased by the police does not indicate any plan to do so, but rather a kind of mental trial-and-error experience that allows one to explore possibilities and associated emotions.
The specialist relates the lack of logic in some dreams to changes in the activity of the prefrontal cortex during sleep, a brain region involved in planning and decision-making. In this context, sudden changes of scenario or strange behaviors may arise that should not be automatically interpreted as hidden messages.
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the United States states that scientists still do not know for certain why we dream, although dreams tend to be more vivid during REM sleep. Gort concludes that dreaming about a particular action does not demonstrate that the person wants to perform it, emphasizing the automatic and involuntary nature of these experiences.
