What is sleep and why do we need it; more precisely why do we dream?

"For centuries people have pondered the meaning of dreams. Early civilizations thought of dreams as a medium between our earthly world and that of the gods. In fact, the Greeks and Romans were convinced that dreams had certain prophetic powers. While there has always been a great interest in the interpretation of human dreams, it wasn’t until the end of the nineteenth century that Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung put forth some of the most widely-known modern theories of dreaming. Freud’s theory centred around the notion of repressed longing -- the idea that dreaming allows us to sort through unresolved, repressed wishes. Carl Jung (who studied under Freud) also believed that dreams had psychological importance, but proposed different theories about their meaning."

[link to www.scientificamerican.com]

The body does all its healing, repairing, and growing during sleep.

Quite possibly. It is a process we have very little scientific understanding of . . . that is for sure.

Dreams are awesome....where else can you fly like that?

I had to vote #2 because there was an option missing: this is also a dream. We are dreaming a dream inside a dream.

[link to www.youtube.com (secure)]

Life isn't imaginary, but it is universal
that people who have "died" and come back
to tell the tale, say that in the disembodied
state, they felt infinitely more alive and
awake and aware, than when imprisoned in this
mortal coil.

A wise person once explained the importance of dreams to me in this way:

”Dreams are the perfect way to hear from God. When you are dreaming, you are quiet, so you can’t ignore Him. Plus, you are not easily distracted. You’re basically all ears for about 7 hours every night.”

Personal experience has confirmed this notion. On many occasions, the Lord has spoken powerful words of encouragement and warning while I slept. Through biblical study, I have found that God intends to speak to each of followers in this manner. In fact, the prophet Joel foretold of a time when God’s Spirit would compel us to dream (Acts 2).

I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions. Joel 2:28 (NLT)

Further confirmation of God speaking through dreams to His children is found in the book of Job. In Chapter 33, Job is confronted with the reality of God’s voice in our lives – whether we hear it or not.

For God speaks again and again, though people do not recognize it. He speaks in dreams, in visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they lie in their beds. He whispers in their ears… Job 33:14-16a (NLT)

It’s important to understand that not all dreams are God-given. It may be that you ate something weird, or that your mind just kept going after a busy day. Dreams can also be from Satan. The enemy of our souls isn’t ignorant of the power of visions. Let I Samuel 28 be a warning. It recounts a time when King Saul seeks counsel from a medium.

How to Handle Vivid Dreams

1. Pray. Before you do anything else, pray that God exposes the source of a dream and what He wants to teach you through it.

2. Listen to God. Take a moment and sit quietly before the Lord so that you may hear His perspective. Once you feel His peace, then you can rest assured that His Spirit was the source. Hearing from the Lord can save you as it did the three wise men. They were warned in a dream to return home another way, avoiding King Herod, in turn saving the newborn Jesus (Matthew 2).

3. Write it down. Grab a notebook and write down what you remember. If after praying you feel that the dream isn’t of the Lord, then forget about it. But if you think God is in it, journal what you feel He is speaking to you.

4. Seek godly counsel. Sharing dreams is biblical. Pharaoh sought wise counsel from Joseph and a generation was saved from starvation (Genesis 41). Just be wise about with whom you share your visions. Be especially cautious of friends who consult books to interpret dreams (I John 4:1). Often, these books and philosophies leave God out of the equation altogether.

5. Let it be. The Lord will bring His dreams to your remembrance. Most of my dreams are extremely vivid; but the ones I pay closest attention to are the ones I remember years after having them. Occasionally, while sitting in God’s presence, He will recall a dream to my mind to reinforce a lesson He is teaching me. The danger comes when the dream preoccupies our thoughts instead of the One who gives us these supernatural visions.

sleep and dreaming is like defragging your Hard Drive. Very important.

I didn't choose anything in the poll. When we sleep we do not shut off, we still hear and think. Dreams are just out of control thoughts, nothing more.

3.
They are amazing yet are a simple rudder for today and tommarrows events.
I pay close attention to the re-occouring dreams

I'm sure you thought that post title would make you sounds smart. Unfortunately..

Considering this reality is the ultimate dream of illusion, most of those answers are right and yet wrong at the same time. Sleeping is the way for the body to spiritually recharge from source, taking in much needed energy from above. You are basically traversing the lower realms of heaven during this time.

Dreams can be a multitude of things, they can be visions, warnings, reminders, lessons, or other teachings from God. Yet dreams can also consist of your deepest desires, pleasurable things, and worlds and entities that you yourself can create; after all you are a creator just like your Father in heaven.

Then there are those who use this time to do spiritual work in the higher realms of the astral. Lucid dreaming and Astral Projection are just some of the higher forms of "regular" sleep. As another poster put it nicely with much scripture, dreams can be very spiritual and its a great time to receive the Word.

Be careful his is working for a Data mining agency.

There ia no single best response, no one purpose of dreaming, not just one type of dreams. There's a lot, icluding training for future events, rehabilitating from past events, pure astral living, brain murmur, symbolic messages from sub/supraconsciousness etc etc

#12

To connect our spirit astally and to recharge human from being led astray.

~Truly, imagine human don't sleep...

NONE OF THE ABOVE

Dreams are just our brains sorting and organizing information like a hard disk defragmentation.

Good poll, well thought out.

that's right folks.
sorry to disappoint you, but we're not as important as you think we are.
we're just computers made of living tissue.

What total BOLLOCKS

Thanks!

We Dream to relax and reset our brain and body functions!

:AlterIDU:

"Never let the fear of striking out stand in your way." -- Babe Ruth

In my humble opinion based on my own eperience and research, I would say that dreams are more of a playground for our consciousness to go while our brain receives its cosmic download.

So we get instruction from the quantum world in our dreams?