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Dreams are a window into the mind. These may be our most elaborate, distinctive, revealing, and flamboyant creations; they have fascinated us for thousands of years. The Egyptians built temples for dreaming. The oracles of Greece pondered cryptic dreams as the "royal road to the unconscious." Dreams allow us to view beyond that which we are and know in daily life; they hint of other dimensions of space and time.

What do dreams really mean? Are they mirrors of your days, tunnels into pauses of the unconscious, or no more than the chance results of biological changes in the brain? No one knows the complete answer yet, but dream researchers are learning more and more about the reasons why we tell ourselves stories as we sleep, and how these tales reflect and relate to waking life.

Dreaming is a product of the brain and its activity. Whether a person is awake or asleep, the brain continuously gives off ‘electrical waves that can be measured by an electroencephalograph.’ At most times during sleep, the brain waves are large and slow. But at certain times, they become smaller and faster. During periods of fast brain waves, the eyes move more rapidly--this is known as Rapid Eye Movement, or REM sleep.

Most dreams occur in REM sleep. During REM sleep, the pathways that carry the nerve impulses from the brain to the muscles are blocked. Therefore, the body does not move much during dreams. Actually, it has been said that the body lies completely still during REM sleep. Also, the cerebral cortex (the part of the brain involved in higher mental functions) is much more active during REM seep than during non-dreaming sleep.

The reports of the dreams that fill our nights become more interesting and intriguing as days go by, but they sidestep a very fundamental question: Why are we dreaming at all?

Traditional psychologists and psychiatrists may say that ‘dreams are the arena in which...