Why do people dream?

The entire concept of dreaming has been a theory of much concern, debate and pondering. There doesn’t seem to be any precise or exact consensus on why exactly we all dream however there are several theories to explain what the process involves. Each of these theories has their own proponents and a strong basis in psychology and even psycho analysis.

The most popular and interesting theory is perhaps that of Sigmund Freud’s. His masterpiece work in this subject is The Interpretation of Dreams and it is quite a well known fact that Freud’s understanding of the human psyche has created quite an impact not only just on psycho analysis but even works of modernist literature where his theories have been heavily borrowed from. He interprets dreams as an unconscious and unfulfilled wish. The problem in completely accepting Freud’s theories lies in the fact that we are yet not aware of what exactly dreams propose to fulfill or complete, to what exact purpose they are designed. Yet the subject is interesting enough for theorists, primarily because this very difficult sense of mystery surrounding it which lends to it an extraordinary element of interest.

Aserinsky was the first scientist to mention REM sleep in his works and research which can be directly related to the entire theory of why people dream. REM is rapid eye movement sleep where the individual is in a state of wakefulness but not strong enough to respond to the content of the dream through muscle movements or body movements like human beings would instinctively respond to a particular situation.

An interesting theory among the several theories that have come to the forefront is that of Eugene Tarnow. According to him dreams are primarily a result of excited behavior or some effect of long term memory that is present in human beings in a heightened sense of consciousness.

Hughlings Jackson suggests that dreams occur at the end of the day when we want to remove unnecessary information, facts or material from our minds so it is more like a cleaning up of junk within our memory kind of a process.

In recent types of psycho analysis what has become very relevant is the interpretation of dreams. More than why we dream, what exactly we dream about has become an important theory of speculation. So while you may actually be dreaming on snakes, Jung will suggest that the snake is a symbol for something more deep and meaningful.

The subject of a dream is always extremely important in understanding a human being because dreams reflect a variety of emotions. When we have a bad dream or nightmares then a dream can even over our moods when we finally wake up and return to conscious reality. While different people believe in different theories of dream, there is no denying the fact that there is an inherent connection between dreams and human emotion. It is also interesting to note that very few people have reportedly dreamt in black and white and whenever we dream the entire process seems disjointed and difficult to completely remember later on.