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by Daydreamer on May 7th, 2005

Daydreamer

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Why do we dream?

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Answers. 13 helpful answers below.

  • by kanjalid on May 7th, 2005

    kanjalid

    There are many theories about why we dream. Most theories fit into one of two categories: Physiological or Psychological.

    - Physiological -
    Example theory: Dreaming allows us to exercise various neural connections that researchers believe affect certain types of learning. When you're awake, messages are constantly speeding among all your billions of brain cells to keep you moving and thinking and digesting and so on. So the idea is that when you're asleep, dreams exercise the "pathways" between the brain cells.

    A hypothesis was proposed in 1977 by Drs. Hobson and McCarley called "the activation-synthesis model of dream production." According to Dr. Hobson and Dr. McCarley, dreams are merely the brain's reaction to random biological processes that occur during sleep. This theory has withstood the test of time and is still one of the more prominent dream theories.

    OR

    - Psychological -
    Example theories: Dreaming allows us to sort through the problems and events of the day, or things that are requiring a lot of our attention.
    Dreams contain our fears, wishes, plans, hopes and worries.
    Dreams help us know more about ourselves.

    Carl Jung believed that recurring dreams are proof that dream-manifested issues neglected in a conscious mode will show up repeatedly in dreams to demand attention. Jung also believed that dreams are not only relevant to the dreamer's life, but that they are all parts of "one great web of psychological factors." Such things as events, movies and people seen the previous day also play a role in dreaming. Sometimes referred to as 'day residue,' these memories leave impressions for the unconscious to deal with when the ego is at rest. The unconscious "reenacts" these glimpses of the past, in the form of a dream.


    Of course, many researchers and scientists also believe that dreams may be caused by a combination of the many theories from both the physiological and psychological categories.

    Bottom line? We still don't know the exact answer as to why we dream.


    http://science.howstuffworks.com/dream1.htm
    http://www.wsu.edu/DrUniverse/dreams.html
    http://www.columbia.edu/cu/21stC/issue-3.4/breecher.html
    http://www.lucidity.com/LD8DFM.html
    http://www.ondreaming.com/theories/

    A very interesting interview about dreaming can be found here: http://health.discovery.com/centers/sleepdreams/experts/garfield.html

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  • by Astaroth on May 11th, 2005

    Astaroth

    Well, the above answer is quite correct, but for the ones looking for a short and straight answer here it goes:

    Humans are not machines that when going to sleep (rest) disconnect themselves until waking up. Our functions keep working the same when we are awake and when we are sleeping. Heart pumping, lungs inflating, blood irrigating the brain and neurons keep sending electrical signals (synapsis).

    Then, those signals are thoughs, unconscious or not, but thoughts, feelings, instincts and so on. These thoughts, feelings and the like during our sleep our known as dreams. When they go bad they are known as nightmares.

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  • by Sgt Churba - Rational Response Squad on January 26th, 2007

    Sgt Churba - Rational Response Squad

    I find it Strange how casually we take the fact that every night we loose conciousness, hallucinate vividly, and then usually suffer amnesia about the whole experience.

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  • by Haoie on July 9th, 2009

    Haoie

    The brain needs something to do.

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  • by brewagmw on June 6th, 2005

    brewagmw

    I think that dreaming de-frags the brain.
    there must be a lot of junk not needed any more all over the brain.
    brian from stafford

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  • by Anonymous on March 20th, 2009

    Anonymous

    We dream to see the future, to travel in time, to write the future, to translate matters...

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  • by ENigma on July 20th, 2008

    ENigma

    The prime function of dreams is to metaphorically act out undischarged emotional arousals (expectations) that were not acted out during the previous day. By dreaming we complete the arousal/dearousal circuit so as to wake up with an unstressed autonomic nervous system and our instincts intact.

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  • by This Daley has a new bundle of joy on March 19th, 2007

    This Daley has a new bundle of joy

    It is our brains processing the events and thoughts of the day. Our dreams are also affected by our surroundings while sleeping. Often times, it is your brain attempting to understand sounds and sensations you are experiencing while sleeping.

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  • by Sitting Duck on May 17th, 2005

    Sitting Duck

    The question can only be fully answered if you try to let go of the idea that man is just a biological machine. When you dream you disconnect from physical reality as you know it.
    Your being makes actually a more firmer connection with its true nature: shapeless, boundaryless, etc That's why dreams have infinite forms. So in fact, during sleeping (and dream is a part of sleep) one 'recharges', without sleep one cannot continue in the physical world, for the connection between you actual 'self' end your physical self is too small..

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  • by dovmeagam on July 18th, 2007

    dovmeagam

    So we can balance between the tunal and the nagual

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  • by Ender is back.. And slightly confused. on July 18th, 2007

    Ender is back.. And slightly confused.

    According to Jung, our dreams can occur for several different reasons. It can be to show a defect in our consciousness, they can be warnings about certain behaviors or mindsets, premonitions about future events, or archetypal recollections of a collective past. There are many possibilities.

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  • by CollapseDev on July 20th, 2008

    CollapseDev

    First of all I agree with the above comment about de-linking off reality, sl*epling is actually bad for you if you lose consciousness - dreams have many reasons both bio & non-bio however one reason we have nightmares is to activate our natural ability to lucid dream & we are aware while we lucid dream - very aware where as normal dreams are barely aware - thats right, dream amnesia is like any other amnesia for examp:

    Your consciousness is the observer & you are watching a movie - You then decide to ignore the movie or pay little attention or refuse much input in the movie - their fore when you try to remember what happened things seem blurred!
    Another factor is dreams are of a non-physical nature which means they have to be converted into a physical nature in order to remember the dreams which explains why they can disappear immediately upon waking & are difficult to recall, this is also due to the actual brainwave state we are in which should be around the Theta state, but because we pass through the delta state that is the state which can screw us up & jumble things as well as put amnesia - this is evident with hypnosis as many claim they could not remember what occurred when in the delta state.

    The ultimate reason which also applies to hypnosis is that We are untrained - I mean really untrained - most of us don't give a crap about our dreams & we can have about 1200 dreams a year!
    In hypnosis clients CHEAT their way into the theta & delta state in basically 5 minutes - one hour which if compared to meditation which CAN take years to get their obviously you can expect the subconscious to fiddle around with their head after all you are a slave & a product of & to your subconscious.
    The characters portrayed in most dreams are taken from your memory to create a scene per dream & we dream a few times a night. Remember you are still their as the observer & remember what you see as yourself is not actually you - that is impossible unless your body has been possessed! lol ppl complain about their bodies being possessed yet it happens to them almost every night when they dream hahaha!

    See In my opinion your brain is taunting you & possessing your dream body while you dream giving you tiny bits of awareness ( im sure all of us know we think during a dream but we are more of a drunk in the state which is why we have trouble remembering as well ) - not enough for us to say hold on Im dreaming!

    Isnt that funny - i tell myself time & time again IF ANYTHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY HAPPENS I WILL SAY IN MY HEAD THAT I AM DREAMING!

    & guess what - every night when i accidentally fall asnooze I always have odd dreams VERY ODD & Yet i see myself in 3rd perspective acting like this is totally normal!

    Nowadays I no longer have any interest in normal sle*p as all of you may not realize, in fact i like to Go astral or OBE & leave my body to the subconscious to cater to - I mean why the freak do you think we have two sectors of consciousness aside from the obvious?

    So one can go to the "Spirit World" & the like & the other more powerful takes care of the dormant physical body.

    For those who do not want to do this you can also go out of body once you become lucid in a dream, i suggest you get spiritual information rather than scientific because science cant even prove consciousness Or anything valuable obout our own selves lol & does not really beleive in these but I mean they believe we dream only because everybody knows we do but thats all!

    When you are in REM - your astral body is actually not in sync with your physical body & their is a link between the bodies & this link transfers valuable bits of information to your physical body so you can remember otherwise you would have a complete amnesia of all the events!

    Their is a reason why most of us feel like we only started high school yesterday - & now we are near the end - because Of AMNESIA!

    Their is no such thing as junk - everything in life has a purpose simple or not & everything is stored in memory.

    I have been meditating for quite some time & in the beginning when i am trying to focus my eyes in the default position if i am seeing myself flying fast & this thought remains clear my eyes just suddenly lose control & flicker & mostly turn left or right instantly unless i roll em up & hold em hard!

    So when we are doing more intense crap our eyes are getting intense feedback & need to be coped with lol so yeah thats why we REM lol

    Their Are many reasons why we dream, I really liked seeing this girl in my dreams even though in reality when i see her not so much, so i ended up quite liking the hot positions & situations she was in as she played with her legs & such while smiling & whenever i awoke i would smile for a moment as she normally gets me interested in the dream just by being in their! Also i rarely ever forget the dreams i have if she is in their!
    & eventually every time i awoke & I always remember a dream if she was in their...Lol a little jumbled up i know but this proves that just for your liking you can change specific content in dreams without direct communication!

    Another thing is I have incredible feelings for someone yet somehow I feel like I cannot dream about her so I can have the full reward of seeing her for real & this was i guess intuition - I wasn't really directly told this & even though I really want to dream about her - All these years Not one dream had her in their - Hmm So This Is True.

    We are all psychic regardless of weather or not we know this, Ive had numerous dreams depicting future events I had absolutely no Idea of & only realized this once the actual event occurred in waking life & after the first few i could no longer dismiss this as coincidence because their were so many one after the other, that I just said Ok what if....& eventually I saw the truth as they say lol

    Because I know OBE & Astral Voyages to be real I was so obsessed that I had dreams about these & because in order to have one you have to be aware - I instantly became lucid - I knew I had a dream & then because in that dream i was trying to go OBE or astral I ended up Lucid naturally & I saw the environment I was in which I thought was real but When i went to places as I normally would things did not seem right - I mean I got choked by somebody because I heard you could touch physical beings as long as you have a physical body & as I was being choked I could feel being choked exactly & because I thought I was really OBE or Astral I knew I could open my eyes at any moment & be right back in my physical body so i did - only to notice my physical throat seemed to be mimicking a heart beating up & down - yes my real throat!
    & I was not doing this - I mean I didn't know those muscles existed - I then forced em to stop
    & I was wondering If I was dreaming or not - I mean I realized I had to of been because the event started out as a dream & then In the dream I went out of body - I also got choked by the ppl in the next room who in actual fact were in bed snoozing so Yeah i concluded this was a dream only to have another lucid dream a few weeks later but this one i just did not know - i mean they started out in the dream & I was once again trying to go OBE or Astral & well i went again only to end up later after the event guessing if this was real or not - i mean i knew this was a dream OBE but are they real compared to normal OBE & Astral events?

    Well I guess the only way to answer this is to Practice OBES & Astrals & understand the differences as they may not be the same & To Actually hold experiments while out of body to see if This Is really the real deal - I am sure but i mean all the brainwashing of society can really screw you over.

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  • by star wars freak on May 12th, 2005

    star wars freak

    we dream because are minds may be in the sub concious zone while sleeping. or when we are sleeping are brain might be a little awake.
    so are brain just tells you by dreaming.

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  • Why do we dream?
  • Why we dream?
  • Why do you believe we do dream at night?

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