Your friend learns you are taking psychology and asks you, "Why do people dream?" Discuss how you would answer this question from the three different perspectives discussed in the textbook.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Although there is not yet a definitive explanation of why people dream, there are a number of widely held theories. Three of the most common are as follows: first, some have proposed that dreams are the process by which mammals consolidate information that has survival value. Freud's explanation was that dreams represent a way to satisfy unconscious wishes that are too disturbing to be considered when awake. A third explanation is that dreams are just the result of random neural activity that occurs as a by-product of REM sleep. This is known as the activation-synthesis theory and is based on the idea that the hindbrain continues to stimulate other areas of the brain during REM sleep and the cortex just tries to interpret these random signals as best it can, which results in the production of dreams. Although it is known that one's conscious concerns can influence dreams, there is no agreement as to whether dreams aid people in solving their problems.