Why Do We Dream?

Question

I have heard many theories about dreams.some people say your mind is preparing for real life situations,your more likely to have a nightmare when sleeping in a cold room you have 7 dreams a night but dont remember them.Whats your opinion?

Answer 1

A dream is a wish you heart makes..when you're fast asleep.

Answer 2

Dreaming is the minds way of expanding its self . To give it time to play and to branch out of reality . When we sleep the mind can Relax and go places we may never see or do things we really would rather be doing . Dreaming is the only way the mind can let go of the work day and kick back with a Vulcan ale and make "snuggle bunnies" with a hot Klingon Princess . ( Oh like you never thought about it ) To be honest I don't know why or how but I am damn glad it does .

Answer 3

My teacher, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada offers some enlightenment regarding dreaming in his translation of the Bhagavad Gita As It Is...."One who eats more than required will dream very much while sleeping, and he must consequently sleep more than is required. One should not sleep more than six hours daily. "

"It should not be concluded that a person in the mode of goodness does not dream. Here "dream" means too much sleep. Dreaming is always present; either in the mode of goodness, passion or ignorance, dreaming is a natural occurrence."

"A person may be fearful of a tiger in a dream, but another man who is awake by his side sees no tiger there. The tiger is a myth for both of them, namely the person dreaming and the person awake, because actually there is no tiger; but the man forgetful of his awakened life is fearful, whereas the man who has not forgotten his position is not at all fearful."

"In a dream one may see himself expanded through many bodies, but when awake he can understand that those bodies were all false. Similarly, although a liberated soul has the by-products of the body-children, wife, house, etc. -- he does not identify himself with those bodily expansions. He knows that they are all products of the material dream. The gross body is made of the gross elements of matter, and the subtle body is made of mind, intelligence, ego and contaminated consciousness. If one can accept the subtle body of a dream as false and not identify oneself with that body, then certainly an awake person need not identify with the gross body. As one who is awake has no connection with the activities of the body in a dream, an awakened, liberated soul has no connection with the activities of the present body. In other words, because he is acquainted with his constitutional position, he never accepts the bodily concept of life."

Answer 4

To me, you dream a lot when you think a lot about everyday things that are significant to you. Like lately, I've had a dream every night for a week which is weird because I usually only have 3 and remember them which I guess still is a little much. But I've been very stressed out lately >> school, my boyfriend, my parents, and one friend. So, the other night I had a dream about my friend that moved away and we were all crying and then it suddenly switched over to me making out with my boyfriend! and then he dumped me for this girl on his myspace that I once got jealous of. So these things stress me out and I dream of them. But I also think sososo much before I go to sleep, it takes me about one hour to get to sleep, so I think that stress and an active mind gets you dreaming. As of REMEMBERING them, I have no idea. I usually remember most of them, and one actually came true which was kind of cool. soo idk if that helps any..

Answer 5

good question. of course i don't think anyone could really know the answer..
i...like many. have had the same dream on and off since child hood. in mine i am free falling and scared, then about 2feet b4 i hit the ground, i will myself to just....float.
that may stem from when i was a child, my brother dared me to jump from like the 27th stair....which, always the daredevil, i did. hurt my ankle too.
plus....lately i have had the most vivid dreams for like a week. then a year could go by and not one...at least that i recall.
i sorta think our dreams have sumthin to do with what we have thought or talked about that day/week.
oh...and i LOVE dreams and even nightmares! what a trip!

Answer 6

Our dreams combine verbal, visual and emotional stimuli into a sometimes broken, nonsensical but often entertaining story line. We can sometimes even solve problems in our sleep. Or can we? Many experts disagree on exactly what the purpose of our dreams might be. Are they strictly random brain impulses, or are our brains actually working through issues from our daily life while we sleep -- as a sort of coping mechanism? Should we even bother to interpret our dreams? Many say yes, that we have a great deal to learn from our dreams.

Physiological theories are based on the idea that we dream in order to exercise various neural connections that some researchers believe affect certain types of learning. Psychological theories are based on the idea that dreaming allows us to sort through problems, events of the day or things that are requiring a lot of our attention. Some of these theorists think dreams might be prophetic. Many researchers and scientists also believe that perhaps it is a combination of the two theories. In the next section, we'll look at some of the major dream theorists and what they say about why we dream.

First and foremost in dream theory is Sigmund Freud. Falling into the psychological camp, Dr. Freud's theories are based on the idea of repressed longing -- the desires that we aren't able to express in a social setting. Dreams allow the unconscious mind to act out those unacceptable thoughts and desires. For this reason, his theory about dreams focuses primarily on sexual desires and symbolism. For example, any cylindrical object in a dream represents the penis, while a cave or an enclosed object with an opening represents the vagina. Therefore, to dream of a train entering a tunnel would represent sexual intercourse. According to Freud, this dream indicates a suppressed longing for sex. Freud lived during the sexually repressed Victorian era, which in some way explains his focus. Still, he did once comment that, "Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar."

Carl Jung studied under Freud but soon decided his own ideas differed from Freud's to the extent that he needed to go in his own direction. He agreed with the psychological origin of dreams, but rather than saying that dreams originated from our primal needs and repressed wishes, he felt that dreams allowed us to reflect on our waking selves and solve our problems or think through issues.

More recently, around 1973, researchers Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley set forth another theory that threw out the old psychoanalytical ideas. Their research on what was going in the brain during sleep gave them the idea that dreams were simply the result of random electrical brain impulses that pulled imagery from traces of experience stored in the memory. They hypothesize that these images don't form the stories that we remember as our dreams. Instead, our waking minds, in trying to make sense of the imagery, create the stories without our even realizing it -- simply because the brain wants to make sense of what it has experienced. While this theory, known as the activation-synthesis hypothesis, created a big rift in the dream research arena because of its leap away from the accepted theories, it has withstood the test of time and is still one of the more prominent dream theories.

In other words, no one really knows what makes us dream.

Answer 7

Frued once said dreams were our royal roads to the unconcious . dreams take us away from reality we cant get hurt in dreams like we can in reality. if in life something is worrying u u will dream about that problem in sleep, u can look at ur problem in a more detailed way and understand wot u have to do to solve ur problem. my dreams lately are to do with people i worry about like the latest one is to do with my nan i think she has alzeihmers things that she does isnt how i knew her speakin to my aunt confirmed wot i was already worryin about. dreams are a way of stepping back from reality and looking from a different view.

Answer 8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream . Everything (nearly) you would want to know about dreams. I heard (maybe from this article) you only remeber dreams you wake up form. My opinion is that dreams are just a way of dealing with the information overload we get everyday (from TV, going out, just looking at differnet stuff) so we don't go mad.

Answer 9

because a dream is a wish your heart makes when your sleeping

when you have a nightmare its your mind scaring you but otherwise we dream because we have an imagination and we can't let that go to waist!
XD

Answer 10

well our dreams is just like someone is thinking more about something that had already happened you see there is someone i really love but i do not show him my love so he thinks he thinks that i do not love him so he does not care about me somehow you know i dreamt of him putting me in aproblem and leaving me to get captured and suffer by being put in prison and then i see him looking at me with very very very sad eyes