Why Do We Dream?

Simple why do we dream, i want every single peice of information any one can tell me on this thanx

Why do we dream? Well, there are alot of different approaches to that one. The sceptist would say that when we sleep, although our body is resting, our brain is not, and dreaming is just random images our minds make up.
The more spiritual thinking people think that dreams are a way of our unconcious communicating with our conciousness. Dreams are supposed to be messages that we couldn’t recieve any other way. Dreams are full of symbols of our problems and how to solve them if you look closely enough. Some people say that our dreams work in symbols because we might not be ready to face the truth. Personally, I don’t think that’s the reason. But if you believe dreams are messages from you’re subconcious, then I guess the reason for dreaming in the end is to improve our waking life. I don’t know, I never really thought about it, I guess I just always assumed that was the reason…

lol to improve our waking life? thats pretty cool i would have never thought of that thanx

maybe it’s just a way for your mind to vent. you know, like when your mad and you feel better when you just release all your problems out to someone, or act out your anger one something? maybe it’s restful for your mind just to vent by thinking up all these random thoughts and images… i don’t know, just a guess. :cool_laugh:

Here you have a sciencific point brought by Hypnodude to Theory of Lucidity subforum:

Quote:
The reinterpretation of dreams: an evolutionary hypothesis of the function of dreaming
Revonsuo A
Behavioral and brain sciences 23 (2000)

Several theories claim that dreaming is a random by-product of REM sleep physiology and that it does not serve any natural function. Phenomenal dream content, however, is not as disorganized as such views imply. The form and content of dreams is not random but organized and selective: during dreaming, the brain constructs a complex model of the world in which certain types of elements, when compared to waking life, are underrepresented whereas others are over represented. Furthermore, dream content is consistently and powerfully modulated by certain types of waking experiences. On the basis of this evidence, I put forward the hypothesis that the biological function of dreaming is to simulate threatening events, and to rehearse threat perception and threat avoidance. To evaluate this hypothesis, we need to consider the original evolutionary context of dreaming and the possible traces it has left in the dream content of the present human population. In the ancestral environment human life was short and full of threats. Any behavioral advantage in dealing with highly dangerous events would have increased the probability of reproductive success. A dream-production mechanism that tends to select threatening waking events and simulate them over and over again in various combinations would have been valuable for the development and maintenance of threat-avoidance skills. Empirical evidence from normative dream content, children’s dreams, recurrent dreams, nightmares, post traumatic dreams, and the dreams of hunter-gatherers indicates that our dream-production mechanisms are in fact specialized in the simulation of threatening events, and thus provides support to the threat simulation hypothesis of the function of dreaming.

Carl Sagan has an interesting take on your inquiry in his book,“Dragons of Eden”. Interesting stuff.

When we sleep our bodys rest,but our minds never do.When we dream we are simply seeing our thoughts as pictures. It’s really wierd how the body works the way it does.