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Why do we dream?

by Amy Grennell

Created on: March 09, 2010

The line between dreams and reality is sometimes thin. Dreams I thought had a purpose, but in fact they don’t seem to scientifically speaking.

Is it a means of psychic discovery or a way to guide you toward the right path? Is it your fears or goals coming to fruition? Maybe it’s just a bunch of information that your brains needs to dispose of at the end of the day. I don’t think they are pointless but some of them are rather silly.



Dreams happen five or six times a night and can be bizarre or scary or even funny. They do have meaning for the individual in that the subject matter and the meaning behind these dreams are really personalized. If you write down as many dreams as you remember over a period of time it’s easy to see what you are “thinking of” by the dream subjects.

We may dream to de-clutter our brains. Every day we take in so much information that we need to discard it while sleeping some believe.

This theory suggests dreaming is a way to file away key information and discard meaningless data. It helps keep our brains organized and optimizes our learning. This theory hasn't been proven by dream research, however and is more similar to a machine than our brain.

Dr. J. Allan Hobson, a psychiatrist and longtime sleep researcher at Harvard, believes that the main function of rapid-eye-movement sleep, or REM, when most dreaming occurs, is physiological. The brain is warming its circuits, anticipating the sights and sounds and emotions of waking.

There are dreams that are premonitions and psychic in nature. There are dreams where those who have passed on come for a visit and give the dreamer a message. When we are relaxed and in a dream state we are better able to tune into our psychic abilities.

Precognitive dreams, which the dreamer learns to discern from ordinary dreams, are accompanied by feelings and emotions or certain symbols. Some dreams appear to be spontaneously telepathic.

Sigmund Freud observed that “dreams create an environment with conditions favorable to telepathy” and often referred to dream telepathy in his clinical work with patients.

I read in a study that if you have psychic dreams several times in your life you are psychic or a shaman. Not all people have psychic dreams but I have quite a few. I don’t consider myself a shaman.

While we continue dreaming every night, science still doesn't have a true answer as to why we dream.

Learn more about this author, Amy Grennell.
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