Question: Do our dreams mean something or is it just the brain going over things that happened during our day?

Asked by jcubo03 to Emma, Josie, Kristyn, Peter, Sarah on 26 Aug 2013. This question was also asked by vishvish, narwhalelite004, cookies, zanzibar, adriendubois, pepper.

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  1. Photo: Josien de BieJosien de Bie
    answered on 26 Aug 2013:

    Ooh that’s a tough one. Scientists certainly aren’t sure as far as I know.

    I think we’re leaning towards the idea that it’s the brain going over connections it’s made and deciding whether to get rid of them or not (google ‘dendritic pruning’). The neurons fire randomly, but because the brain wants things to mean something and make sense (our brain is built for superstition and seeing patterns in clouds and grilled cheese), it comes up with a likely story.

    I wonder what Sarah has to say about this, she’s the expert.

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  2. Photo: Peter EnticottPeter Enticott
    answered on 26 Aug 2013:

    Good question. It’s really not known; early psychologists favoured the idea of a subconscious, and dreams were thought to be a way of this subconscious expressing itself. It’s a hard theory to test, though, and I doubt many people would have this view these days.

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  3. Photo: Sarah BlundenSarah Blunden
    answered on 27 Aug 2013:

    Hi
    Great question.
    WE ( sleep researchers) think that dreams are excatly what you said…….going through things in the day..trying to remember important things….putting them into long term memory..
    We knoiw that if you have good sleep after learning and doing new things, you remember them better. So dreams are importnat for learning. Some people believe that dreams are an importnat way of drawing our attention to important things.
    Do dreams mean anything? Well apart form being part of our learning….. there is no strong and consistent evidence to say that they can predict the future or that, for example if you dream of something in particular, (maybe a snake), that something will happen, (like winning the lottery).

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  4. Photo: Kristyn BatesKristyn Bates
    answered on 27 Aug 2013:

    Dreams and sleeping are SUPER important in terms of learning and memory. Not getting enough sleep has been found to increase the likelihood that someone will develop dementia, or loss of brain function.

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  5. Photo: Emma StewartEmma Stewart
    answered on 27 Aug 2013:

    I don’t think anyone knows for sure, but it’s a fascinating research area!!

    I personally agree with the “going over things from our day” idea – when I remember the dreams I’ve had they are always related to some aspect of the day – the people I’ve seen, things I’ve read etc. But I am not an expert in this area! 🙂

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Comments

  1. Photo: jcubo03jcubo03
    commented on 27 Aug 2013:

    I agree with Peter, it isn’t really known if our dreams actually mean something. There are some websites where you type in your dream or click on pictures that describe your dream and you get told what your dreams mean. I don’t think that those sort of things aren’t true but its still fun to do it.

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  2. Photo: emeralddragon101emeralddragon101
    commented on 27 Aug 2013:

    Yeah I also agree with Peter that no one can actually no. I personally don’t believe they mean something because once I had a dream about a candy land and I’m pretty sure that’s not true. Unfortunately. 🙁

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  3. Photo: wazzzza17wazzzza17
    commented on 2 Sep 2013:

    Well, the majority of the time, I have a dream and it relates to the future

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