Why Do Humans Dream?
1. Warm-Up
- Do you remember your dreams?
- What was the last dream you remember?
- Do you sometimes dream about people you know?
- Why do you think our brain creates dreams?
- Do you think dreams can help us understand our feelings?
Passage 1 — Dreams and Memories
During the day, our brain receives a lot of information. We see many people, hear many conversations, and experience many situations. All of this information stays in our mind.
When we sleep, the brain continues working. It starts looking at the things that happened during the day. The brain begins to organize ideas, memories, and experiences.
Dreams can appear during this moment. The brain sometimes mixes different memories together. For example, you may dream about your school, but you see a friend from another place there. The brain is connecting different memories at the same time.
In this way, dreams can help the brain organize everything that happened during the day.
Diagram — Dreams and Memories
Opening idea
• One reason we dream is because the brain is organizing memories.
Main points
• During the day we collect many memories.
• At night the brain reviews these memories.
• The brain connects people, places, and situations.
• This is why dreams often include things from our daily life.
Closing idea
• Dreams can appear while the brain is organizing what happened during the day.
Passage 2 — Dreams and Feelings
Every day we feel many emotions. We can feel happy, excited, nervous, worried, or even afraid. Sometimes we do not have time to think about these feelings during the day.
When we sleep, the brain can think about these feelings more calmly. Dreams can include situations that created strong emotions earlier.
For example, a student who is worried about a test may dream about school. Someone who feels nervous about a problem may dream about that situation.
Because of this, dreams can help the brain deal with feelings and slowly calm down the mind.
Diagram — Dreams and Feelings
Opening idea
• Dreams can also be connected to our feelings.
Main points
• During the day we experience many emotions.
• Some feelings stay in our mind.
• While we sleep, the brain thinks about these emotions.
• Dreams sometimes include situations that made us feel something strong.
Closing idea
• Dreams can help the brain understand and calm our emotions.
Passage 3 — Dreams and Practice
Dreams often show situations that are not normal. In dreams we may run, search for something, try to solve a problem, or try to escape from something.
Some scientists believe the brain uses dreams to practice situations. The brain creates these situations while we sleep.
For example, many people dream about running, hiding, or trying to solve a difficult situation. In the dream, the brain is imagining what to do.
Even when we are sleeping, the brain is still active. It continues thinking, imagining, and exploring ideas.
Dreams allow the brain to experience situations in a safe way while we sleep.
Diagram — Dreams and Practice
Opening idea
• Dreams can also help the brain practice situations.
Main points
• Dreams create imaginary situations.
• The brain experiences challenges during sleep.
• Some dreams include problems or danger.
• The brain is exploring possible reactions.
Closing idea
• Dreams allow the brain to practice situations while we sleep.
Reflection & Discussion
- Which explanation do you think is the best: memories, feelings, or practice?
- What is the most interesting dream you remember?
- Why do dreams sometimes feel very real?
- Why do some people remember dreams and others do not?
- Do you think animals also dream?
Writing Task (Blog Comment)
Answer the question:
Why do humans dream?
You can talk about:
• memories
• feelings
• imagination
• a dream you remember
Example:
I think humans dream because the brain is organizing memories and feelings from the day. Sometimes I dream about places and people I saw earlier.
We dream because we need to organize our memories. During the day, we feel many things, and in the night, some feelings and situations stay in our mind, and we dream about them. When we dream, the brain can think about the feelings more calmly, and we have opportunities to organize our feelings because of this. For this reason, the dreams are so important for all of us, at the same time, they are so fun, sometimes scary too.
We dream for so many reasons, but the two main reasons are the feelings and emotions. When we dream we organize the memories that we collect during the day, and the feelings that we felt during the day. With this we can learn more about our feelings, we can simulate situations that can happen or that happened during the day. Because of this I think that dreams are so important and fascinating for us.
Honestly, I don’t have a response for this question. I have some theories about this, for example, I believe when we dream we have a replay about our day, our routine. I believe too, when we dream we have a simulation about our future, about our situation in daily life. I think that happens because the brain is trying to prepare for all types of situations. It’s so interesting because even when we are sleeping the brain is active. Because of this, the dreams are so interesting for me.
I really can’t come up with a right answer for this question, because even science doesn’t know the right answer. In fact, I have a theory that our dreams are a collateral effect of all the memories and emotions that our brains are processing. Also, I think that the brain can make dreams, to allow our consciousness to be more able to understand ourselves and emotions and feelings in general. In the end, I really think that dreams are very interesting, and I also like the theories that say the dreams have a relation with multiverses, or with the spiritual world and all that type of things. For this reason, I love to study about the dreams.
Humans can dream in very different ways, we can dream about our day, our feelings, and even about something we never saw before.
The first theory says that after the day, the brain, which stays active during our sleep time, tries to organize all the memories we experienced during the entire day, mixing things you just saw with things that you’ve already seen a few moments ago.
The second theory says that humans dream about their feelings, their emotions. Since we don’t have time to stop and think about what we just felt, the brain analyses what you felt during the day and makes you really reflect about your own experiences.
The third theory, which is my favorite, relates human dreams with future probabilities, where your brain simulates a situation to learn and teaches how to pass through it.
That’s why the dreams are something really amazing for me, even with all these theories, we still don’t know what really happens when we dream our dreams.
Why do we dream? That’s a very talked about question, up there with “what happens in the afterlife?” or “why are we here?”. Society tries to explain it through these three theories.
The first one says that our dreams are based on our memories, they are experiences we had throughout our day or week. That’s why, most of the times, our dreams have a lot to do with things that happened in that day.
The second one, and probably my favorite, says that our dreams are based on our feelings. Sometimes, when we have a very weird dream, we think that it just doesn’t makes sense, but probably it translates into something that you’ve felt at some point.
The last one talks about practice. It’s trying to say that our dreams are trying to prepare us for possible real life situations. That’s why sometimes we have dreams where we’re trying to run or hide from something.
There isn’t an answer of this question, because science doesn’t know why exactly we have dreams. But there are some theories about our dreams and about why we dream about strange things.
The first theory is because of our memories. Scientists say that during the day, we have many memories like conversations, situations and problems. At night, the brain reviews all the memories and puts them on our dreams.
The second theory is about the feelings. It is because, during all day, we have many emotions. In fact, we feel happy, sad, excited, worried or afraid, the brain collects these feelings. While we sleep, the brain organizes all of the emotions, and that why’s in some dreams we can feel very happy, or very sad. It depends of the strongest feelings that you felt during the day.
The last theory is about the practice. Many people talk about the dreams that were strange, like running, hiking or solving a difficult problem. It is because the brain is trying to solve things that could happen during the day. That’s why we don’t have an answer for this question.