The psychology of dreams

Everyone, at one time or another, has wondered what their dreams mean.

Dreaming is the most extensively studied cognitive state. While some experts
believe that dreams have no meaning and serve no function, others believe
that our dreams do mean something.

A number of theories exist on what dreams mean, some of the more

recognized theories include:

 Psychoanalytic theory. In this theory, dreams are believed to

represent unconscious desires, wish fulfillment, and personal conflicts.
Dreams give us a way to act out unconscious desires in the safety of an
unreal setting, because acting them out in reality would be
unacceptable.
 Activation-synthesis theory. Popularized in the 1970s, this theory
suggests that dreams are just a byproduct of your brain trying to
process random signals from your limbic system, which is involved in
your memories, emotions, and sensations.
 Continual activation theory. This is the idea that our brains are
continuously storing memories, even when we’re asleep. It suggests our
dreams provide a place to hold our memories while they make the
transition from our short-term memory to our long-term memory.

These barely begin to scratch the surface of dream interpretation theories.

Here are some other interesting theories on the meaning of dreams:

 Dreams are threat simulations that help prepare you when faced with
threats in real life.
  Dreams are your brain’s way of collecting and clearing out useless
information from the day to make room for new information the next day.
 Dreaming goes back to an evolutionary defense mechanism of playing
dead to fool enemies. This explains why our bodies are paralyzed while
dreaming, but our minds remain highly active.

The bottom line

Experts may not have any concrete answers as to why we dream and what
function dreams serve.

What we do know is that everyone dreams, and even our really strange
dreams are perfectly normal.