For my independent study topic I researched dreams.
There are many differentapproaches philosophers have taken to explain dreams and what they mean. I willgo through a couple of them. Many of you may be asking yourself “why do Idream?”, there are several answers to that question. The first in thephysiological set.
We dream in order to exercise our brains. When youreawake, messages are constantly speeding among all your billions of brain cellsto keep you moving and thinking and digesting an so on. So the idea is that whenyoure asleep, dreams exercise the “pathways” between brains cells. Acouple of ideas that might help this make sense are; the first couple of yearsof your life are the most intense for learning which is also when you have thegreatest amount of REM sleepwhich means your dreaming a lot.
Another thing isyour brain waves during REM sleep look about the same as your brain waves whileyour awake. During other parts of sleep, the brain waves look very different (alot slower) There is also a psychological set of ideas about why we dream. Sincepsychology has to do with your thoughts and emotions it has been said dreams areactually about immediate concerns in our lives. In the bible and within a lot ofcultures dreams are thought to be prophetic, which means they can predict thefuture. Sigmund Freud a famous philosopher gave us a lot of ideas on how ourminds work and was very interested in interpreting dreams.
He thought dreamscontained symbols hidden deep within our minds and memories.
