What Causes People to Have Dreams

Dude, Why Do We Dream?

“Dude. Why do we dream?”

“LOL. Why do you want to know that?”

“It’s for a class.”

“Like why do we dream, like, what do you want to be when you grow up? Or—“

“No, like why do we have dreams—“

“Not like I dream of being an astronaut, or a dinosaur—“

“No, like when I go to sleep, why do I have dreams.”

“I dream about—“

“I don’t want to know what you dream about, I want to know why we have dreams.”

“Probably because of something you ate. That’s my theory. I had some Taco Bell other night, and I had some messed up dreams. Nightmares, bro.”

“Never mind. I gotta go the library.”

“Nah, stay here and Google that, bro. Game about to start.”

So I Googled it. Actually, I Duck Duck Go’d it. First result: Very Well Mind. From April 7, 2021. “Some of the more prominent dream theories contend that the function of dreaming is to: Consolidate memories. Process emotions. Express our deepest desires. Gain practice confronting potential dangers. Many experts believe that we dream due to a combination of these reasons rather than any one particular theory” (Cherry, 2021). I read that out loud to my roommate. “Mm. Game’s on, bro.” He made a hand motion like a mouth shutting. I sat and thought about what Cherry had to say. It sounded like what I’d heard in class—about Freud, and dreams-for-survival theory and all that. I wondered for a moment if psychologists were like rock stars of a former age—before there were guitars and microphones; whether when they traveled to tour with their psychological theories if they were surrounded by groupies, and—

“Dude, I know what I’m gonna dream about tonight.”

I glanced up. My roommate, I suspected, was perhaps expressing some deep desires, judging by the broadcaster on the field looking pretty and talking sports from the sidelines. But I didn’t like where that thought was going and wondered—really? Can you plan your dreams? Nah.

I asked: “You ever wake up from a dream, and then want to get back into it but you can’t, or if you do it’s changed and it’s, like, not the same?”

“Yeah like in Inception.”

“No, I mean like in real life.”

“Nah, bruh. Game’s on. Sh.”

“I can’t focus. I gotta go the library.”

“All right, bruh.”

The walk to the library is always a lonely one. I scrolled through my phone. A Why Do We Dream TED Talk. I clicked the link: “In the 3rd millennium BCE, Mesopotamian kings recorded and interpreted their dreams on wax tablets” (Adkins, 2020). Hm, I thought. Maybe we dream because we’re getting messages from somewhere, from something… Maybe—

Walking and scrolling is an accident waiting to happen. I walked right off a landing and rolled down a flight of steps. Phone went flying. At the bottom, legs over my head, I heard exclamations. A group of sorority sisters. They leaned over me: “Are you all right?”

I smiled. “Yeah. I’m trying to find out why we dream.”

“That’s a funny way of doing it.”

“Yeah, by falling down stairs?”

“No, I was reading on my phone.”

“Shouldn’t walk and text, yo—bad as texting and driving.”

“I wasn’t texting.”

“Here’s your phone. Sorry—it’s cracked.”

“Next time try the library,” one said in a sing song voice. “Are you okay?” asked another. They helped me up.

“I was going to the library. And, yeah, I’m okay. I’ve taken worse falls than that before.”

“I bet.” Giggles.

“But anyway, seriously, any of you ladies know why we dream?”

“Yeah,” one said: “Isn’t it, like, our subconscious telling us something?”

Another jumped in: “Actually, I think it’s because of what we eat!”

I was about to say that was what my roommate said, but the girls went haywire and started chattering over one another, and there was nothing to do but bow out and bolt for the library. Ladies, another time!

“Byyyyyee!” they hollered after me.

I got to the library and went to the desk. A dude in a sweater wearing glasses looked up at me. “Books on dreams,” I said.

He pointed with a pen without saying anything and rolled his eyes back to his screen to signify we were done. I headed in the direction of the pen and spent the next 20 minutes browsing books on bookshelves, getting nowhere.

All the searching made me tired, so I took a seat at a table out of the way. It was peaceful and quiet in the library and the air was cool. I put my arms on the table and laid my head in them—and fell asleep. I dreamed I was in an old castle, an ancient chamber, enormous, like a wide, dark cave—and there were rows and rows of bookshelves, high as the ceiling, and from wall to wall. There was the sound of water dripping from somewhere, slowly, slowly, like footsteps falling. I walked and walked past all the rows, knowing somehow that they were all on the subject of dreams and that I could never read them all. Then I heard actual footsteps from far away, then closer, and then I saw him—an old man, dressed like an ancient librarian, pushing a cart from out a row of shelves. He heard me approaching, too, and stopped, turned, half-expecting me and my question; and I asked: “Why do we dream?” And he answered, “Because we’re not dead, silly—we’re sleeping.” He looked at me over his spectacles and continued: “Your soul is still very much alive. Your dreams are like a movie of what’s going on in your soul.” And he stopped and stared at me as though to say, “Duh,” and then he turned and pushed off with his truck of books.