• Question: why do we have dreams

    Asked by Jodie Spencer to David, Eva, Kate, Nicholas, Rachel on 9 Nov 2015. This question was also asked by OkayOkay, (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ.
    • Photo: Rachel McMullan

      Rachel McMullan answered on 9 Nov 2015:

      Hi Jodie
      I don’t think anyone really knows the answer to this.
      One theory is that dreams help our brain to process all the information from when we’re awake and decide what information to keep as memories and what it doesn’t need.

    • Photo: Nicholas Pearce

      Nicholas Pearce answered on 9 Nov 2015:

      Hey Jodie,

      Even though we’ve known about dreams for…ever basically, nobody has discovered why we dream yet. It’s still a mystery. I highly recommend watching this video if you get a chance, it explains a lot about different types of dreams and dreaming, but still doesn’t explain why, sorry:

      Also look up Lucid dreaming: that’s when you’re asleep, but know you are dreaming, so you can control what happens:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream

    • Photo: David Nunan

      David Nunan answered on 11 Nov 2015:

      Hey Jodie,

      Trying to understand dreams and what they mean has been a question that has plagued scientists throughout history but they’ve still not come up with an answer.

      A scientist name Sigmund Freud (you may have heard of him 🙂 was interested in this question and spent a great deal of effort trying to answer it. He came up with some good theories. This video from the Khan academy nicely explains some of them: https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat/processing-the-environment/sleep-and-consciousness/v/dreaming

      But it still remains for scientists to prove them!

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