Why do we dream?

zbeckabee

"Letting Off Steam." Griffin hypothesized that that is why animals evolved to dream. During REM sleep, unfulfilled emotional expectations left over from the day are run out in the form of metaphors, thus deactivating them and freeing up the brain to deal with the new emotionally arousing events of the following day. Without dreams fulfilling animals' expectations by acting them out metaphorically, and thereby dearousing the autonomic nervous system, animals would need a vastly bigger brain. Griffin's expectation fulfilment theory of dreams states that: Dreams are metaphorical translations of waking expectations. Expectations which cause emotional arousal that is not acted upon during the day to dearouse the arousal, become dreams during sleep. Dreaming deactivates that emotional arousal by completing the expectation pattern metaphorically, freeing the brain to respond afresh to each new day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreams Sep 05 06, 9:19 AM

Gnomon

Another theory is that dreaming is a byproduct of the reorganising of our memories. We move things from episodic memory, which remembers what actually happened, into semantic memory, which remembers things as links to a whole load of different concepts. This latter way takes a lot less storage in our brain, but explains why we can't remember exactly what happened. Various images and scenes from our memory are thrown together at random while this process is happening, and our conscious self tries to make sense out of them, resulting in dreams. Sep 05 06, 9:57 AM

shazy95

This should help -- Some theories state that dreams are a way in which we release stress. If this were true, then more people (especially those who are stressed-out) would remember their dreams. Remember that dreams come from the inner you, more specifically they are communications from your subconscious mind. All day long we are busy moving through our waking lives, taking in sensations from all around ourselves. During our nighttime slumber our conscious mind is stilled, providing us with the opportunity to receive communication from our subconscious mind. http://www.som.org/1dreams/why.htm [Text added -- Zb] Aug 25 08, 3:21 PM

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Why do we dream? Do we always dream everytime we sleep? Why can't we remember the majority of our dreams? Why do we cry? Why do we sweat? Why do we sneeze?

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