The brain is a carbon-based computer. Its job is to correlate inputs with stored data and produce useful output. Emotions are mostly a product of the endocrine system and the primitive parts of the brain, and need not overwhelm, in most circumstances, the commanding forebrain. Everyone understands all that, more or less, and believes it to a degree, and yet we each have had such amazing dreams.
They distort or destroy every bit of knowledge and belief about the world, and can be terrifying, but dreams sometimes bring such a feeling of wholeness and content that one hates to wake. Of course, they can bring complete terror, too. Some scientists think dreams are designed to restore body and mind, and yes, sleep does that.
Freud thought that there is a part of ourselves we know, and a part we don’t know. Somehow, the submerged part sends messages to the familiar part through dreams. There are certainly bits of information people have hidden from themselves. (It’s easy to see all these kinds of things in operation in other people.) Still, why should anyone suddenly be able to read these hidden messages when they come to him or her in dreams?
Some modern theorists say that dreams are a way the unresting brain rehearses memories, insuring that the most important data is stored in an accessible and useful way. To this group of researchers, that explains why the lack of sleep impairs memory. Perhaps the dream-making part of the brain is storing memories according to how powerful the emotions associated with them are, because the best and strongest dreams seem to be associated with powerful feelings.
The Greeks had a network of dream hospitals, where a sick patient’s
dreams would be interpreted to find a cure. This society believed there were two kinds of dreams, one dispatched through the gate of ivory, one through the gate of horn. The gate of ivory dream is a deception, like in the dream in which a dead loved one lives. The gate of horn dream tells the truth, as when the German chemist Fredrich August Kekule von Stradonitz, after spending years working on the structure of benzene, fell asleep and dreamed of a snake biting its tale and awoke to the realization that the structure of benzene is a ring. Or the chemist may have dreamed up that story, in answer to incessant questions about how he came by his stunning insight.
Modern researchers think that dreams may be an attempt to explain sensory input that might otherwise destroy sleep. The creaking floor, the wind in the trees, the calling cat outside, all have stories woven about them by the sleeper’s brain, because the real story is not accessible, and because the brain’s function is to make connections. These stories lull the dreamer into believing that he or she is safe in sleep.
There are cultures, and people, who believe that dreams literally foretell the future. So, for example, if a man dreams that he loses his wallet, it means he will lose his money. To the degree that character is destiny, there can be some truth to this view of dreaming.
Others think a dream is a sort of replay of the day, straightening out the parts the dreamer was conflicted about, and adding context. It often seems a fairly incomprehensible context.
Just because something is not understood, doesn’t mean it makes no sense. The greatest errors arise when we think we understand something we do not. There is a mechanism that causes dreams, because there are dreams. There is a reason for dreaming, although we do not understand it yet. For now, I think, the best thing to do with a dream is to appreciate its mystery and power.
