• Question: Why do people dream?

    Asked by emmajennings1d to Charlie, Eoin, Jemma, Julian, Steve on 17 Mar 2011.
    • Photo: Charlie Ryan

      Charlie Ryan answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      hi emmajennings! Sorry but i don’t have a clue!! it’s not my area of research, and i really wouldn’t know where to start.

    • Photo: Julian Rayner

      Julian Rayner answered on 17 Mar 2011:

      Hi Emma. I honestly don’t know the answer, not my field. The best theory I have heard, though, is that it is a by-product of the way your brain processes information. The brain is pretty miraculous – it can pluck out memories from years ago in exquisite detail. Even 70 year olds can sometimes remember details of their childhood better than they can remember what they ate yesterday. To pull that trick off, the brain has to have a very sophisticated way to file information, which we don’t yet understand (although Jemma might?). I once read that dreaming happens while your brain is filing information when you sleep – might not be true, but sounds cool.

    • Photo: Jemma Ransom

      Jemma Ransom answered on 17 Mar 2011:

      Nobody really knows. We know that sleep itself is vital to our survival (humans can’t go for very long without it) but we don’t really have any evidence to suggest why it is we dream. I’ve heard it argued that during sleep we process the memories we gather during the day and consolidate them – and certainly memory performance in people who haven’t slept is very poor – but then I know people who claim they don’t dream, and this doesn’t appear to affect their performance during the day. So I guess the answer to your question is that sleeping remains for the moment a bit of a mystery.

    • Photo: Stephen Moss

      Stephen Moss answered on 17 Mar 2011:

      Hi Emma
      Dreaming is something we apparently do every time we sleep, whether we remember the dream or not. But as to why we dream, I don’t think anyone really knows. There are certainly times when aspects of a dream can appear to be related to recent events in your life, suggesting that our subconscious thoughts are active even while we are unconscious. But it’s not clear whether we dream for any specific reason.

    • Photo: Eoin Lettice

      Eoin Lettice answered on 17 Mar 2011:

      Hi emma,
      I think Jemma will be able to give you a great answer to this one!
      There is so much we don’t know about the brain, I guess dreams are out brain working while our body is asleep and processing all of the information it’s gathered during the day!

      Eoin

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