Are dreams a cleansing of the mind?

[Philosophy Explorer]

What is the function of dreaming? Some facts about dreaming:

a) We normally do it when we sleep.
b) We do it in technicolor (joking a bit).
c) Dreaming is random - the subject matter varies from dream to dream and we don't know beforehand what we will dream about.
d) Dreaming is normally based on the individual's memories.

I'm not original with this idea. I feel the main purpose of dreaming is to help cleanse the mind of memories, to help us function better, mentally speaking.

What do you think about this?

PhilX

[Arising_uk]

a) We normally do it when we sleep.

I thought we did it in the bit between being fully asleep and fully awake?

b) We do it in technicolor (joking a bit).

And surround sound at times.

c) Dreaming is random - the subject matter varies from dream to dream and we don't know beforehand what we will dream about.

Is there a consistent subject matter in one dream?
[quoted) Dreaming is normally based on the individual's memories.[/quote]I thought them often triggered by external noise?

[Aero]

I'm not original with this idea. I feel the main purpose of dreaming is to help cleanse the mind of memories, to help us function better, mentally speaking.

What do you think about this?

PhilX

I agree. The way I see dreaming is like defragmenting the hard drives on a computer. Once defragmented, data can be accessed quicker because the storage space has been sorted out in order. With the human mind, our brain is being defragmented in dreams and everything from memory to motor reflexes are being sorted out. This is why recovery and sleeping are so important in our lives.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

I've noticed that really dull people claim to never dream. Not sure what the connection might be.

[Aero]

I've noticed that really dull people claim to never dream. Not sure what the connection might be.

I think they mean that they don't remember dreaming, so they falsely assume that they don't dream.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Some further thought on this. Just because we're awake doesn't mean we're not dreaming (not talking about daydreaming nor fantasizing). We could be dreaming without realizing it. But it does seem the only time we know we dream is when we are asleep.

PhilX

[duszek]

I usually know that I have been dreaming the moment I wake up because the tension of the dream has become to hard to bear.

We probably cleanse the mind of some fears that we prefer not to dwell upon during the day.

One time I woke up because the situation in the dream was too depressing to bear (in the dream I was lacking something vitally important to me).
When I realized what I was dreaming about I was suprised because I had these items (and I still have them now). So the dream probably expressed a big fear of losing what I already had. A sort of preemptive fear ?

If you deal with such fears by talking to a professional psychotherapist then these dreams probably stop.
Another way could be to argue rationally that your fears make no sense because ... (a logical or philosophical argumentation).