The purpose of dreams and what they could mean: psychologist dives into the mind

Do you ever wonder what's going on in your mind while you're asleep or why you keep having recurring dreams? Psychologist Lisa Rowbottom shares some insight.

Do you ever wonder what’s going on in your mind while you’re asleep or why you keep having recurring dreams? Registered psychologist Lisa Rowbottom joined CTV Your Morning Edmonton’s Kent Morrison on the brain activity when you’re asleep and why you might be having specific dreams.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Kent Morrison: What’s the purpose of dreams? Why do we dream?

Lisa Rowbottom: There’s a couple of theories. One is that we’re processing things that we encounter during the day while we’re asleep, but the part of our brain that makes sense of these things is also asleep. So we get these odd, assembled dreams or thoughts or memories, because the part of our brain that makes it make sense isn’t there, so you get some pretty strange dreams sometimes.

There’s also a theory that our brain uses it for emotional regulation, but more in a future orientated way. In our dreams, we will encounter things that may trigger certain emotions. It’s almost like our brain is working through and prepping us for the next time we experience that particular emotion or if we run into that particular emotion, what would we do?

Kent: Do these dreams actually mean anything?

Lisa: It depends on what your culture is and where you come from. There are some psychological theories that do ascribe meaning to dreams. There is a theory that as human beings, we share this collective understanding of certain symbols and when those certain symbols show up in our dreams, then we’re working through something related to that. Often in cultures, snakes or spiders represent evil or bad or danger. So when they show up in somebody’s dream, that theory says that person is working through some things around the idea of maybe danger.

Kent: Why do we have nightmares?

Lisa: If we go back to the emotion processing side of things, it’s our brain prepping us for the potential of that thing happening. Everybody’s mind is going to be a little different as to what they think are potentials.

For someone who is always running, their brain is working through the fight or flight response for when that happens. But of course, because the part of our brain that says: ‘Yes, this is happening to you. No, it’s not. You’re asleep,’ it can feel very much internal, like your systems are responding as if you were and so you get a very vivid experience of running.

Kent: Many people are also texting about having recurring dreams and they seem to have similarities with whether it’s the running one or failing a test when you’re not actually in school. Do we have any idea why that happens?

Lisa: Depending on your culture, obviously there are shared things that we fear happening more than others. If you’re someone who’s really driven by academic excellence, you might not even be in school, but your brain is running scenarios as if you’re failing out of school.

Or you might be somebody who really values family. You might have a dream that you’re running and running and running and you can never find your family. It’s whatever your brain connects to as being a very large threat. Then if we go with the emotion processing theory, it’s preparing us unconsciously for the potential of that happening.