Why we dream?
16-01-2012
Dreams are one of the more enigmatic parts of life. There are a number of theories on why we dream at all and while none have been proven, there is one that has become increasingly probable. That is that dreams are the brain’s way of processing and sorting, of filing certain memories and deleting others, you could say in a way that dreams are the brain’s housework.
Each day we see and hear and think so many different things and the stimulation is constant. When we go to sleep at night, the stimulation ends, we stop making new memories and this gives the brain time to sort through all the memories of the day.
Dreams are the brain’s method of sorting memories out, of working out what is important and what is not, of deciding if there are any connections between a new memory and an old one.
When you think of the dreams you have, you can see this process at work. Often your dreams will contain elements of the previous day and other more distant memories. This is the brain connecting old and new memories together, processing and tagging them so that in the future it can recall them and make those connections.
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