Dreams have always been a subject of fascination among philosophers and
researchers.
But only recently there have been clinical and lab studies about why do we
dream and 
from where all those thoughts came from???
Chances are that you’ve often found yourself puzzling over the mysterious content
of a dream,
or perhaps you’ve wondered why you dream at all.

First, let’s start by answering a basic question – What is a dream? A dream can include
any of the 
images, thoughts and emotions that experienced during sleep. Dreams can be
extraordinarily vivid
or very vague,  filled with joyful emotions or frightening imagery; focused and
understandable or
 unclear and confusing of the dreams.

Psychoanalytic Theory of Dreams:
Consistent with the psychoanalytic perspective, Sigmund Freud’s theory of

dreams suggested that dreams were a representation of unconscious desires,

thoughts and motivations. According to Freud’s psychoanalytic view of personality,

people are driven by aggressive and sexual instincts that are repressed from

conscious awareness. While these thoughts are not consciously expressed, Freud

suggested that they find their way into our awareness via dreams.

In his famous book The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud wrote that dreams are

"...disguised fulfillments of repressed wishes. He also described two different

components of dreams: manifest content and latent content. Manifest content i

s the actual images, thoughts and content contained within the dream,

while the latent content is the hidden psychological meaning of the dream.

Freud’s theory contributed to the popularity of dream interpretation, which

remains popular today. However, research has failed to demonstrate

that the manifest content disguises the real psychological significance of a dream.

Activation- Synthesis Model of Dreaming:
The activation-synthesis model of dreaming was first proposed by J. Allan Hobson

and Robert McClarley in 1977. According to this theory, circuits in the brain become a

ctivated during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, which causes areas of the limbic

system involved in emotions, sensations, and memories, including the amygdala

and hippocampus, become active. The brain synthesizes and interprets this

internal activity and attempts to find meaning in these signals, which results in

dreaming. This model suggests that dreams are a subjective interpretation of

signal generated by the brain during sleep.
While this theory suggests that dreams are the result of internally generated s

ignals, Hobson does not believe that dreams are meaningless. Instead, he suggests

that dreaming is “…our most creative conscious state, one in which the chaotic,

spontaneous recombination of cognitive elements produces novel configurations

of information: new ideas. While many or even most of these ideas may be

nonsensical, if even a few of its fanciful products are truly useful, our dream

time will not have been wasted.

Other Theories of Dreams:
Many other theories have been suggested to account for the occurrence and

meaning of dreams. The following are just of few of the proposed ideas:
One theory suggests that dreams are the result of our brain trying to interpret

external stimuli during sleep. For example, the sound of the radio may be

incorporated into the content of a dream.

· Another theory uses a computer metaphor to account for dreams. According

o tthis theory, dreams serve to ‘clean up’ clutter from the mind, much like

clean-up operations in a computer, refreshing the mind to prepare for the next day.

· Yet another model proposes that dreams function as a form of psychotherapy. I

n this theory, the dreamer is able to make connections between different thoughts

and emotions in a safe environment.

· A contemporary model of dreaming combines some elements of various theories.

The activation of the brain creates loose connections between thoughts and ideas, w

hich are then guided by the emotions of the dreamer.