Does dreaming serve any purpose to our mental well being?

Question

In other words do we dream for a reason?

Answer 1

Oh yes, we dream for a reason...the same reason we have thoughts while we're awake. Thoughts, dreams, the same thing: the mind doing its business of solving your problems day by day.

Every thing human beings do is for a purpose, a future goal. (Behavior is not "caused" by the past. Thoughts, feelings, actions...all seek something in the future, a result of pay-off.)

Everything is a problem. The vast majority of things are small, everyday problems. You wouldn't even think of them as "problems" except I just said they are. A few are major problems, and maybe one or two in your lifetime are so huge you KNOW they're problems!

Your mind's job (in addition to other things, such as giving personal meanings to every event in your life, or giving yourself reasons to do or not do things, etc.) is to solve your problems.

This is done while you're awake with thoughts, and while you're asleep with dreams. That's basically it. And to think we've known this for about 100 years! (think Dr. Alfred Adler's Individual Psychology).

--  Dr. Bob, Adlerian Psychologist

Answer 2

IMO. Dreaming is our mind filing ours days experiences by assosiation into permernent memory. IE things happen so fast during the day most of our experiences are stored into a local area of the brain for sorting during less stressful moments. Whilst asleep our brain sorts the latest experiences with older ones for the best place to keep them.

IMO

Answer 3

Absolutely!

Although ... it's not terribly well-understood.  There have been studies done in which the participants got plenty of sleep, but had their REM (dream) sleep interrupted.  In those studies, it was found that those whose dream-sleep stages were interrupted were more negatively affected than other participants whose other sleep-stages were interrupted ... even though the actual total amount of sleep was the same.

Dreaming does seem to serve some necessary and healthful function ... people who don't dream because their REM sleep is inadequate are generally less healthy, both mentally and physically.