The Importance of Dreaming

What do Joan of Arc, Mark Twain, Harriet Tubman, and Winston Churchill have in common? They were all influenced by their dreams. Dreaming is vital to the human story. It is essential to our survival, creative processes, and, quite simply, to getting us through our everyday lives. Throughout history people tried to understand the importance of dreams. Dreams have been described by biologists as the neural processes that allow consolidation of memories and by psychologists as reflections of the human subconscious.

Many cultures and religions contain beliefs regarding the ability to receive divine messages through dreams. In fact, some people believe dreams to be a realm beyond the physical that is the precinct of true imagination, discoveries and innovation, even the origin of creation. Indigenous people, such as the Aborigines of Australia, call this the Dreamtime. This state permeates song, dance, storytelling, paintings, and artifact making etc. To them dreamers are travelers between both worlds, analyzing their environment and bringing wise solutions to problems, spiritual knowledge as well as creativity to the physical world.

In modern urban societies, few people have regular sleep patterns like most humans did for almost all of our evolution. The introduction of artificial lighting has disturbed our natural circadian rhythms and cheated us of our dreams and fantasies. Yet new research shows that even though we may not be aware of our dreams as often, we are dreaming at night nonetheless. The new science of dreaming suggests the following:

• Almost everyone dreams, every night ― even those who have suffered massive brain injury.
• Humans who have modern sleep patterns have an average of six dream sequences per night, whether or not they remember them.
• Dreaming does not only occur in the rapid-eye-movement (REM) state of sleep as believed previously but occurs throughout the night in some form or the other.
• Dream deprivation leads to "psychological disturbances such as anxiety, irritability, and difficulty in concentrating."¹

The question then arises that if we realize that dreaming is such a necessity and helps to recharge the mind and body, why do we remain out of touch with this wonderful ability? We are already at some risk of caging our imagination and our body's own healing powers due to consumerism and virtual media. What will happen to modern society if we slowly silence our dreamers?