Dreams: A Modern Perspective

Dreams are a universal human experience that can be described as a state of consciousness characterized by sensory, cognitive and emotional occurrences during sleep. Dreams are the stories and images that our minds create while we sleep. They can be entertaining, romantic, disturbing, frightening, and sometimes bizarre. Why and how we dream remains something of a mystery. There is no cognitive state that has been as extensively studied and yet as frequently misunderstood as dreaming. Reports of dreams tend to be full of emotional and vivid experiences that contain themes, concerns, dream figures, and objects that correspond closely to waking life. Dreams are an enduring source of mystery for scientists and psychological doctors. They are by nature difficult to study in a laboratory, but technology and new research techniques may help improve our understanding of dreams. They possibly represent a unique state of consciousness that incorporates experience of the present, processing of the past, and preparation for the future. Events experienced while awake are said to feature in 1 to 2 percent of dream reports, although 65 percent of dream reports reflect aspects of recent waking life experiences