Dreams

Why do we dream?

Duis Montes,
Tellus Lobortis

Why do we dream?
We spend roughly six years of our lives dreaming yet, dreams are still a mystery. There are many many
theories surrounding the topic of dreams. The history of dreams goes back to essentially the beginning
of time. In Ancient times (about 3100 B.C), the Sumerians in Mesopotamia. The gods and kings would
record their dreams and believe the dreamer would leave his/her body to go to another dimension
known as dream world. As you can see, there have always been theories of dreams from 5,000 years ago,
to now. However, now we don't believe people actually travel out of their bodies to dream. We know
more but there are still many questions like what causes our dreams and why do we even dream. Even
though there are many questions to mysterious dreams, scientists have found three theories.
Psychoanalytic Theory of Dreams, Activation-Synthesis Model of Dreaming and Information-Processing
Theories.

1 2 3
ACTIVATION INFORMATION PHYSCHOANALYCTIC
SYNTHESIS MODEL PROCESSING THEORY OF DREAMS
MODEL OF THEORIES
DREAMING

1
Activation Synthesis
Model of Dreaming
The theory Activation Synthesis Model of
Dreaming, proposes the idea of circuits in your
brain get activated during REM sleep and it
makes memories, emotions, thoughts, feelings,
and other things active. Your brain will then try
to find meaning in all of these signals which
causes you to dream. This theory says that dr
SMS are caused by signals in your brain during
daytime, we get information and memories all
sleep. However, it does not mean that your
day which then comes up in our dreams. Our
dreams have no meaning. Founder Robert
brain when we sleep will create images we've
McClaery says “dreaming is our most creative
seen throughout our day and our brains will try
conscious state.” He also says we find new ideas
to manage the activity and turn it into a dream.
and dreams are not a waste. This theory was
founded by Robert McClaery in 1977.

Information Processing
Theories
The next theory is Information Processing
Theories. This theory suggests that dreaming is
just apart of information processing which means
our brain processing information. During the

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Physchoantalyctic Theory
of Dreams

Some people say that no theory about dreams is

The last theory is the Psychoanalytic Theory of Dreams.
This is the theory was created by Sigmud Freud. It
suggests that dreams show your desires and thoughts that
exist when you're unconscious. It's typically thoughts that
get repressed when we are conscious. In his book "The
Interpretation of Dreams," he said that dreams are
"disguised fulfillments of repressed wishes." Freud also
discovered two components of dreams which are manifest
(actual images and thoughts in the dream) and latent
content (the psychological meaning of the dream which is
typically hidden). His theories about dreams are very
popular.
100% true and that is the truth. All dream theories
are just theories and have not been proved yet,
however, there are a lot of facts to back up the
theories. For example, in the Activation Synthesis
Model of Dreaming scientists have figured out that
when you're dreaming, there's a wide variety of
neural activity. Hobson and other researchers have
found that during sleep circuits and in your brain
are activated during sleep and that causes the limbic
system (emotions, memories, sensations) to activate
which your brain will synthesis thus turning it into a
dream. Theories can be supported by facts (Kendra
Cherry)

In conclusion, even though our

theories on why we dream are just
theories, there is data and scientific
research backing them up. We are
getting closer and closer to figuring
out the point dreams have and why
they happen. Weather it's that we're
repressing things in which we want,
getting thoughts and memories we
experienced during the day or that
it's just in fact your brain trying to
find meaning of thoughts and
memories.