• Question: Why do we dream

    Asked by what492sup on 12 Mar 2025. This question was also asked by pace520tuft, used520frat, just520genu, mans520genu.
    • Photo: Rachael Eggleston

      Rachael Eggleston answered on 12 Mar 2025:

      I’m not sure, and I don’t know if we know. I believe I’ve heard it may be a way to help our brains process/store the previous day’s memories.

    • Photo: Zoe Vance

      Zoe Vance answered on 21 Mar 2025:

      I’m not sure we know why – last time I checked we weren’t fully sure why we sleep either! It seems like we need to sleep to get rid of something that builds up when we’re tired and we need it to repair our bodies but I don’t think we have the actual mechanism worked out (could be wrong, it’s been a few years since I looked into it!)

      Dreaming to me seems likely to be just what we see as our brain is working through things in the background – while it solidifies our memories and things like that. There is also an idea that dreams are what our brain does when it isn’t getting visual input while we sleep – it isn’t seeing anything so it essentially hallucinates to keep the visual processing part of itself busy. So that would be pretty cool, but I don’t think we’re sure of the reason!

Comments

  • Photo: sanjinagurung

    sanjinagurung commented on :

    I read ‘Incognito’ by David Eagleman and in it, he says that one of the theories is that all our senses fight to stay alive. Since we spend about 8 hours without vision when we’re asleep, dreaming might be a way for our vision to stay alive/active.