• Question: Why do we dream

    Asked by chimp 123 to Sarah, Robert, Claire, Angela, Ian on 18 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by Melon.
    • Photo: Angela Stokes

      Angela Stokes answered on 18 Nov 2014:

      The short answer is….we still dont know. There are theories however, one is that dreams work with sleep to help the brain sort through everything it collects during the waking hours. During sleep, the brain works to plough through all of this information to decide what to hang on to and what to forget. Some researchers feeldreams play a role in this process.

      There is an idea that dreams are connected to how we form memories and some studies have shown that if we are learning new things while we are awake, our dreams increase while we are sleep.

      Another idea is that dreams reflect our emotions.

    • Photo: Sarah Harris

      Sarah Harris answered on 19 Nov 2014:

      We dream most often in the REM cycle of sleep, which is the deepest stage and thought to be associated with storing memories. This is why, as Angela said, some people think dreams are related to forming memories. But really, we just don’t know!

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