Question: why do we have dreams ?

Oliver answered on 7 Nov 2018:

This is a very interesting question and there is no agreed answer. Our dreams happen during the REM (rapid eye movement) part of our sleep. Until relatively recently, psychoanalytic theories thought dreams were the brain working out and reflecting upon thoughts created by the unconscious mind. Neuroscience is also looking at how dreams could instead be the result of the mind trying to make sense of the activity of the brain stem. It is also possible that dreams can consolidate our memories and process information from the previous day. One amazing aspect to dreaming is lucid dreaming – where you are aware and sometimes even in control during the dream. Some very interesting short talks on this can be seen here (the famous TED talks): http://dreamstudies.org/2015/09/28/3-must-see-ted-talks-on-lucid-dreaming/