States of Consciousness. Our group focused most of our research on dreams.

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Why do we dream? Modern scientists now know that we dream regularly during REM
sleep. We learned how we dream through the study of the brain stem. But, what really
remains a mystery is, why do we dream?

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Early explanations were that they were messages from God. The Egyptians attempted to
influence dreams by sleeping in the temple of the dream god Serapis. In india, the
sacred Vedas described the religious significance of dreams. The chinese believed that
when you were dreaming, your soul would leave your body and wander about outside
of it. Because of this, they will never awaken a sleeper, out of fear that the soul would
not find its way back to the body.

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Cultures such as the african and native americans believed that dreams were an
extension of waking reality. For example, if a Cherokee dreamed of being bitten by a
snake, they would receive treatment for a snake bite as soon as they wake up.

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There are a couple questions that need to be considered. Number one: What biological
function do dreams have? Number two: What are the meaning of dreams?

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Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory, dreams have two purposes. It is to guard sleep
and to fulfill ones unconscious desires. Freud also disinguished between manifest,
storyline and latent, symbolic meaning, content.

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Dreams can vary by ones Culture, Gender and age. For example, Mexican-Americans
would have some death-related images appear more often because death is an
important part of the mexican culture. Dreams within the first 90 minhutes connect with
events that happened the previous day. Dreaming can also improve our memory by
replacing old versions of memories with new.

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Some may still wonder, does each dream have a special meaning? Most dreams are just
spontaneous bursts of activity within your brain. Also known as Activation-synthesis
theory or a brainstorm afterthought.

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Dreams can also be highways to creative insights. Dreams, although, “random” can still
help us to seek the guidance we need by randomly throwing ideas.