Are sleeping dreams to help us remember, forget, predict or sort, or a combination?

It is my personal theory that we evolved dreams to prepare themselves for events that may happen in the future. For example: You fight a crocodile in your dream and you have better odds of beating a crocodile in real live if you were to be attacked.

Dreams are a strange combination of emotion, experience, and subconsciousness. E.G. I took some nyquil a few nights ago and had a dream that I was wading through a pool of jello like goo. The goo was strangely similar to the gel capsule I had ingested. My sub-conscience reacted to the removal of the painful symptoms of sickness and intertwined the memory of me actually looking at the gel capsule. The lethargic, sleepy feeling manifested itself in the dream via the perception that I was slowed down in this pool, having to force my way through it.

Our minds may also pick up subtle hints of events to come, or details of events passed that our waking mind could not process. When asleep, nearly all focus is taken off of the rest of the body and the mind is allowed full reign to process what it couldn’t before.

I am actually asleep right now, so I take no responsibility for whatever it is I just typed

I have always felt that my dreams are metaphors (often muddled, inappropriate or bizarre) that serve the purpose of portraying emotions.

If I wake up feeling aroused, angry, frustrated, or anxious, I examine the emotions only. The imagery is often interesting, apt or familiar, but just as often is odd, inexplicable or completely alien.

I agree with @gailcalled. Most of my dreams seem to be metaphors for what I’m going through/dealing/coping/etc with at the time. I also try to look at only the emotions, but sometimes end up looking at what was going on in my dream that seemed to cause that emotion.

Personally, I have a recurring nightmare that is my “stress dream”. It’s based on me still being in college. I’ve had this dream so many times that it now incorporates my saying “I can’t believe I let this happen! I’ve had this nightmare so many times and now I’ve actually done it in real life!” I graduated 7 years ago, so obviously that’s no longer the problem, but I can look at my life and see what’s stressing me out as much as finals week and what I might be missing.

I will also say that my Grandma passed away in May. I’ve always been one that has a “special gift”. I always know the minute someone I know well dies (as uncomfortable as that is). And I seem to be “in touch” with “spirits” around me. (I do not believe in Heaven or Hell, or The Bible for that matter.) But I didn’t get anything from my Grandma after she passed. Nothing unusual anyway. One day my television and stereo kept turning themselves on (seriously, no one in the room, batteries out of the remote, both were shut in an armoire, nothing touching the on buttons). And I didn’t think a thing of it. But then every night for a week I dreamt about my Grandma and some other relatives. They were all my age, dressed in strange robes, having a picnic by a spring. And it is the most peaceful dream I’ve ever had. And during each dream I’ve asked my Grandma to come see my Mom so she’ll know she’s okay, but she won’t so I ask her if I can stay with her, and she tells me it’s not time yet. I don’t see a metaphor there. And if there is one, I don’t care. For me, it tells me that even though I miss my Grandma sometimes so much my whole body aches it makes me feel like I can’t breathe, she’s okay and she’s still there, somewhere. And that kind of dream influences my life.

Dreams are your minds way of working out something that is plaguing you. You may not be aware of the issue consciencely but your sub-conscience does know and is trying to work on your issues. I don’t take stock in dreams meaning something because your the one who is creating them. I enjoy them if they are good ones though.

My thinking is that dreams are a combination of a lot of things. Sorting out a day’s events, pure fantasy or entertainment, facing fears, symbolically dealing with things in your life, etc. Sometimes they have meaning, sometimes not. I had a really bizarre dream a week or so ago that even after telling several people, none of us could figure out what the hell it could mean, where it came from, or how my brain even came up with it in the first place.

As the cow chews her cud, so we ruminate in dreams.

Dream studies tend to lean toward the theory that dreams are the brain’s natural filing system. Information that we gather during the day is sorted and combined with information we already knew, and filed away. Dreaming allows us to play out scenarios using all of the information we have tucked away, and areas in which new information gathered would be most useful.

@MissAnthrope I remember hearing that there was a dream study done that essentially said that dreams seem so “bizarre” because we only remember the last dreams we’ve had, most of the time. Where, the dreams you have earlier in your sleep cycle make more sense, and the longer you’ve been asleep, the more unusual they become. So, if you were to be woken up early in the night to recall your first dream, you might understand the weird one you had.

Dreams seem to be related to the maintenance of neural pathways and the consolidation of new knowledge associated with particular emotions.

I’m a prolific dreamer, and I think the responders above have provided many great insights into dreams. They are your mind being active when your body isn’t – and they can produce solutions/ideas with great clarity (the problem-solving dream); they can leave you dazed and confused, possibly fearful (the worrisome dream/nightmare); they can spark ideas of such originality that you marvel at your own mental prowess (the all-too-rare “breakthrough” dream). They even provide some great sex on occasion! They arise from the combination of memory, emotions, external stimuli, daily experiences and all the things mentioned above. You stir the pot a bit, add a little personal spice, and . . . kapow!