Why do people think that there dreams mean something?

Question

why cant they be random burst of neural activity? why do people think that theyre dreams have significance to their lives, present or future? what is the draw of dream analysis or dream interpretation?

Answer 1

Sometimes dreams do mean something, they are your minds way of telling you things while you sleep.  I dreamed about all 3 of my pregnancies before they happened and knew the gender of the babies and their names.  I have dreamed about men that i would meet someday and have met them.  I have also dreamed of medical issues and then discovered it to be right.  Of course I have had some silly ones too that make no sense and I wakeup thinking "what the heck was that about" but sometimes dreams can play an important part in your life  

Answer 2

Perhaps some dreams mean nothing and others do... You just need to keep an open mind. You have a brain so think about it...Why would random "neural activity" have an actual plot or objects or people??

Answer 3

Because, for better or for worse, we as humans with brains usually like to try to make sense of those things we experience.

So while dreams may mean nothing at all, many of us are interested in those things we can't fully understand.

Furthermore, some dreams are strange or funny or scary.

Have you ever thought about a dream you had?

Sure, some people may give their dreams more meaning than they may deserve, but I see nothing wrong with being curious about all facets of life. But, as with anything, people can take it to an extreme.

I myself like to make sense of dreams I have -- quite often they seem to reflect what I'm thinking about at the time.

Sometimes, I think my dreams do have a message. Other times, I think they just reflect what I was doing or thinking about right before I went to sleep.

But if you don't want to give any weight to your dreams, that's fine as well. Your dream about a zombie apocalypse could be a reflection of a movie you saw or a videogame you played. Or it could carry some other meaning -- quite often, dreams aren't to be taken literally. The zombie apocalypse could symbolize something else.

But, again, if such things are of no interest to you then it's OK to ignore your dreams.

Answer 4

How do you know they don't mean anything? =P

Answer 5

Your brain is created to organize information.

Thats all it does

Its good at itt

and it loves doing it

So naturally its going to do it all the time

but when night time hits and you go to sleep, your brain has all the information from the day's events and it doesnt know what to do with it or how to accept it.  

so what does it do?

it organizes all the information into an easily "swallowable" story.

for example,

i told my friend on friday i would go with him to work out at the gym on monday at 230PM. I enjoyed the rest of friday; got on youtube, watched a few "punkd" videos and went to sleep

I had a dream that Justin Timberlake  called me to tell me that my buddy wanted to go to the gym at 1200PM instead of 230PM

the "punkd" with justin timberlake was the last one i watched before i went to bed,  its all just information stored throughout the day/week/year/lifetime

and to answer the rest of your question, i really dont know

some people just like to believe that things they dont understand have an incomprehensible purpose