What Do Dreams Do?

Dreams are a puzzle. We don't know what to make of them. Familiar faces, identifiable places, and remembered experiences appear but dreams mix them up. Why is this?This book argues that dreams take people, places, and events out of their waking life context to identify complex, non-obvious patterns in the life of the dreamer. Our brains in wakefulness evolved to detect regular, associative patterns. Like, day follows night. In contrast, our dreaming brains evolved to uncover patterns in the behaviour of other living creatures, typically, predators and human competitors- our dangerous rivals for food and water. We dreamed to survive! Behavioural patterns aren't certain, they depend on tendencies and non-obvious associations. For example, lions tend to visit the waterhole at night but, in the dry season, if they get very thirsty, especially when prey are around, lions may be there during the day. To identify this pattern and avoid lions, a dream would associate elements of different experiences at the waterhole. Making associations drives many, if not all, brain functions. Dream associations may support memory, emotional stability, creativity, unconscious decision-making and prediction, while also contributing to mental illness.Exploring the evolutionary significance of dreaming, and showing the reader how to identify patterns in their own dreams, this book will be compelling reading for anyone interested in psychology, consciousness, and the arts.