What Do Dreams Do?

What is a dream? It’s a complex, non-obvious pattern derived from your experience. But you haven’t actually experienced it. Strange. Revealing complex, hidden patterns makes dreams odd. Dreams associate elements of different experiences to make something new: a pattern you didn’t know was there until you dreamt it. Patterns are discernible forms in the way something happens or is done. Some patterns are easy to spot, being certain and obvious: night follows day. Patterns in human/animal experiences are less obvious because, first, the patterned elements appear at different times or places and, second, the pattern exhibits tendencies not certainties. Spotting such patterns depends on non-obvious associations. If prompted with ‘sea’, while awake, your logical brain makes obvious associations, ‘beach’ or ‘boat’, with a seaside pattern i.e. beach-boat-seaside. But after awakening from dreaming, when your brain is still tuned to non-obvious associations, ‘sick’ may come to mind. A less obvious element of sea experiences. You tend to seasickness when it’s rough. But you also get sick if you eat shellfish, have a migraine, or travel in cars—but only if you read. Sea–rough–car–read–shellfish–migraine. Visualizing these non-obvious associations between elements of different experiences becomes dream-like. Dreaming brains evolved to identify non-obvious associations. Across evolutionary time, you didn’t want to get sick. Survival depended on being well enough to anticipate the non-obvious patterns of predators and human competitors, while securing access to food and water. Making associations drives many, if not all, brain functions. Dream associations support memory, emotional stability, creativity, unconscious decision-making, and prediction, while also contributing to mental illness. This book explains how. We have puzzled over dreams for centuries. From ancient societies, believing dreams to be messages from the gods, Freud's theory of dreams revealing our unconscious minds to modern day experiments in psychology and neuroscience, dreams continue to fascinate but also be a source of mystery. Are dreams just mental froth or do they have a purpose? This book argues that, originally, we dreamed to survive. Dreaming brains identify non-obvious associations, taking people, places, and events out of their waking-life context to uncover complex and, seemingly, unrelated connections. In our evolutionary past, survival depended on being able to detect these divergent, associative patterns to anticipate what predators and other humans might do, as we moved around to secure food and water and meet potential mates. Making associations drives many, if not all, brain functions. In the present day, dream associations may support memory, emotional stability, creativity, unconscious decision-making and prediction, while also contributing to mental illness. Written in a lively and accessible style, and showing the reader how to identify patterns in their own dreams, this book presents a highly original theory of dreaming and will be a compelling read for anyone interested in psychology, consciousness, and the arts, as well as those involved in dream research. Dreams are a puzzle. We don't know what to make of them. Familiar faces, identifiable places, and remembered experiences appear but dreams mix them up. Why is this? Is dreaming just a frivolous mental activity, or might there be a greater purpose to dreaming. This book argues that dreams take people, places, and events out of their waking life context to identify complex patterns in their experience - patterns that on first glance might seem to be chaotic. It considers that dreaming brains evolved to identify non-obvious associations. For example, throughout evolution, you didn't want to get sick, so survival depended on being well enough to anticipate the non-obvious patterns of predators and human competitors, whilst securing access to food and water. Making these associations might have driven many, if not all, brain functions. The book shows how these dream associations might support memory, emotional stability, creativity, unconscious decision-making and prediction, and even possibly even contribute to mental illness.Exploring the evolutionary significance of dreaming, and showing the reader how to identify patterns in their own dreams, this book will be compelling reading for anyone interested in psychology, consciousness, and the arts. -- Provided by publisher Dreams are a puzzle. We don't know what to make of them. Familiar faces, identifiable places, and remembered experiences appear but dreams mix them up. Why is this? Is dreaming just a frivilous mental activity, or might there be a greater purpose to dreaming. 0This book argues that dreams take people, places, and events out of their waking life context to identify complex patterns in their experience - patterns that on first glance might seem to be chaotic. It considers that dreaming brains evolved to identify non-obvious associations. For example, throughout evolution, you didn't want to get sick, so survival depended on being well enough to anticipate the non-obvious patterns of predators and human competitors, whilst securing access to food and water. Making these associations might have driven many, if not all, brain functions. The book shows how these dream associations might support memory, emotional stability, creativity, unconscious decision-making and prediction, and even possibly even contribute to mental illness.0Exploring the evolutionary significance of dreaming, and showing the reader how to identify patterns in their own dreams, this book will be compelling reading for anyone interested in psychology, consciousness, and the arts Cover What Do Dreams Do? Copyright Acknowledgements Contents Prologue: What Do Dreams Do? 1. What Is a Dream? PART I DREAM PATTERNS, DREAM BASICS,AND DREAM BACKSTORY 2. Dream to See Patterns 3. Dream to Associate 4. Dream to Survive 5. Dream to Remember PART II DREAM EMOTIONS, MEANINGS, ANDUNCONSCIOUS IMPACT 6. Dream to Emote 7. Dream to Decide (and to Act) 8. Dream to Predict 9. Dream to Reveal PART III DREAM CREATIVITY AND CRAZINESS 10. Dream to Create 11. Dream to Go Crazy? PART IV DREAMS AS PATTERNS (IN BRIEF),OTHER DREAM THEORIES, AND FUTURES 12. Dreams as Patterns, Fit with Freud and Other Dream Theorists Epilogue: What Dreams May Come? Name Index Subject Index Dreams are a puzzle. We don't know what to make of them. This book explores the evolutionary significance of dreaming, its role in memory, unconscious prediction, creativity and psychiatric illness. It will be compelling reading for anyone interested in psychology, psychiatry, consciousness, and the arts.