• Question: why do we have dreams ?

    Asked by 469genp45 to Oliver, Remsha on 7 Nov 2018. This question was also asked by 264genp33.
    • Photo: Oliver

      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/

    • Photo: Remsha Afzal

      Remsha Afzal answered on 16 Nov 2018:

      Great question and to be honest no one even knows for sure!! Our brains are so weird haha! There are several theories: Like some say they are a way to establish memories better, or are important for emotional reasons, and some say they serve no purpose and are just nonsense activity of the brain!

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