Dreams may reflect a memory-processing mechanism inherited from lower species
—Jonathan Winson
—Jonathan Winson
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy--William Shakespeare
Human beings have long sought to understand the meaning or value of dreams. Ancient Egyptians were convinced that dreams possessed oracular powers. In other cultures dreams have been described as inspirational, curative or as alternative reality. Sigmund Freud suggested in his publication The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900 that dreams were “the royal road” to the unconscious, that they revealed in disguised form the deepest elements of a person’s inner life.
Since Freud, scientists have variously suggested that dreams were either totally meaningless—simply the result of random nerve cell activity—or that they were a way for the brain to rid itself of unnecessary information, like ‘unlearning’.
