Question: why do we dream

Tatiana Trantidou answered on 19 Jun 2015:

There are many theories about why we dream. One of them is that during sleep, the brain works and tries to sort out every information it collects during the waking hours. Scientists believe that the more things we learn during our day, the more we dream in our sleep, so in a way dreams are related to how we form memories/experiences.
Another theory is that dreams reflect our emotions. During the day we usually focus on doing certain things, and we don’t deal with our emotions (anxiety, stress and others). When we sleep, our brain relaxes and makes very loose connections, then our emotions take over. For example, if you are worried about something during the day, it is very likely that you dream about it in your sleep.
There is also another theory suggesting that dreaming has no meaning at all, and it just happens randomly because our brain is very active during that part of our sleep (called REM sleep). We haven’t yet fully decoded the function of the brain to be absolutely sure why we dream, but hopefully we’re getting there.