What Is Up With Dreams? One of the Many Mysteries of the Brain

I have always been fascinated by dreams. Apparently so are many scientists. This field of neuroscience continues to baffle many in the field as they struggle to make sense of dreams, their function, and their processes. Much of the same can be said of sleep as scientists have many unanswered questions regarding many of its nature and purposes. But what is up with some of the crazy things that happen each night when we are in REM sleep? Is there any hidden deeper meaning or purpose to our dreams? Most of the time, I really don't think there is (though I grant there are exceptions to this--for instance see the testimony of former Muslims having dreams or visions of Christ). As an example, last night I had a dream where I was at a play of some sorts and when I walked outside one of the doors to go to the bathroom Michael Moore was standing there talking to a couple other people.

After going up and introducing myself to Moore somebody opened a door which made us visible to the audience. Instinctively I moved out of the way out of fear the audience would see me. Moore didn't have enough time to get out of the way and was seen by the audience and he got mighty embarrassed and angry at me that I didn't get him out of the way also. That's the last thing I remember about the strange dream.

Let's break this down. First, why did Michael Moore make an appearance in my dream? Sure, he's occasionally the subject of discussion, and several days previously I had seen the trailer for his upcoming movie, but there's nothing so significant about him on a personal level. Also, I don't remember even thinking about him a day or two before the dream. Second, what merged Michael Moore and theatre into a single dream? Yes, I have a lot of experience in theatre, but I haven't done a mainstage show in several years and certainly none of them have involved Mr. Moore. Third, and this I found most interesting, was how my brain mixed up a couple concepts. In real life, if I were a non-participant in a production, it would not have mattered to me if somebody leaving an auditorium opened up a door and exposed me to the wings of fellow audience members. There would have been no reason to panic and run out of sigh. However, again in real life, had I actually been a participant backstage awaiting an entrance, or observing what was going on onstage, and had been inadvertently exposed to the audience, that would have been bad news. But my brain crossed those two very different scenarios into one.

Certainly some dreams probably do have a deeper significance--people's fears, unresolved conflicts, etc. But at least in my case, most the dreams I actually remember are nonsense or more akin to my brain just doing random things while I sleep. What makes all this happen during states of semi-consciousness is interesting and apparently there is no definitive answer. The hard-core materialist will just link this to the randomness of the brain in general. And what we consider "we" or our "personality" is just stuff interacting in our brains. There's no eternal "spirit," no sacredness, just reductive physicalism. Of course, they can't account for the rise of consciousness in humans or any other creature for that matter. We can understand what parts of our brain do what, but the whole area of consciousness is more murky territory for neuroscientists. Many atheistic types just pronounce the rise of consciousness a mystery and leave it at that.

Obviously I don't buy into reductive physicalism for a number of reasons, but the brain certainly is a fascinating thing. And much remains to be discovered about these different subjects related to the brain: sleep, dreams, consciousness on a whole, etc. I do think there are some answers out there and if they come I don't suspect they'll validate the claims of mystics who find meaning in every dream nor the reductive physicalist who bases everything on naturalism. But whatever the answer, it sure would be interesting to know the cause (and purpose, if anything) of the oddball things my brain processes and arranges on a nightly basis.