Thoughts Deciphered into Words: The Theory of Dreaming

"Have you ever experienced bouncing around in gigantic bubbles in the sky? Have you ever undergone the punishment of a crime you never committed? Or have you ever felt like you've met someone before, when in reality you haven't even seen them ever?"
- - - I'm sure you have!

For ages people have been scratching their heads to discover the real reason behind various sets of familiar and unfamiliar images that are projected in human minds while sleeping. Dreaming has always been a fascinating subject and like all the fascinating subjects, it infects you with the craving to find out more and more about it. However, satisfying that hunger hasn't proven to be an easy task. Since the earliest of times, people have continued to believe that dreams are a medium of connection of this world to that of the supernatural. It has also been believed that dreams are actually the holy predictions of the future. However, no scientific base for this portion of nature was set before nineteenth century, that's when Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist, first got a theory on dreams recognized on a large scale. His theory, called the Freud's theory, suggests that dreams are actually a way to re-experience a moment in the manner that fulfills your desires. This theory has been a base to many researches that are being carried out today. And since then, many learners of neuroscience from around the world have been involved in the process of continuing this quest. Some of them have been trying to find out why do we dream, while others have given all their devotion to conclude the legitimate answer to one of the most convoluted questions ever asked: How do we dream?

Is dreaming a controlled feature of the human imagination? Or is it a self-driven function of the brain? A prominent theory, mental housekeeping theory, proposes that we dream so that the unwanted content can be eliminated from our everyday experiences. This theory basically indicates that dreaming is a self-driven stress removing function of the brain that activates whenever humans do not like the circumstances they're undergoing. Another extrusive theory, activation synthesis hypothesis, suggests that dreams are nothing but mere signals transmitted while humans sleep to gather notions and moments from their memories. And when they wake up, they build a story out of the dreams to make sense out of it all. This theory has been extensively researched upon, and so far, neurologists have come to advocate that dreams have a strong connection with our memories. They say that we have already lived what we see in the dreams. However, this argument does not appease the situations where a person visits the place completely strange to him or does a thing he's never done before. But then again, it's a vast subject and scientists are still progressing towards the perfection of the pursued theories.

The theories stated above are based on scientific method and reasoning, however the following theory was basically initiated by religious thought and is now taken on by a group of neurologists in Australia. This theory (there hasn't been a decided name for it, so let's cal it the dream-soul hypothesis) says that dreaming is actually a process related with one's soul. When a person sleeps, his soul departs the body though still connected

through an invisible medium. Now, the person gets to see where ever the soul goes, meet whoever the soul meets (this is how we meet dead people in our dreams) and literally experience whatever the soul goes through in the dream. Have you ever felt like you've been to a place before, when actually it's your first time there? It's because your soul has already been there in a dream. And, when the soul comes back from this expedition, the person is ready to wake up. It is also said that in order for the soul to re-enter the body, it has to find it's way back.
Have you ever wondered why you get so disturbed when someone tries to wake you up from a deep sleep? It's because your soul is trying to find the right way.
And, another extension to this thought is that if somehow the soul does not manage to find the way back, the person enters a stage where he can feel everything but not wake up. This situation is commonly known as "coma". The period a person takes to get out of coma depends on the time his soul takes to get back to the body. This theory does lack the proper scientific reasoning, because science rejects to admit the presence of souls. But, it's still the most intriguing of all and scientists have agreed to excerpt the truth out of it.

Along with work being done on the theories stated above, there are many researches presently going on around the globe to take the idea of dreams to perfection. The neurologists are doing all they can in all the possible dimensions to extract the information. And, they're doing it not only to cool the global curiosity, but also to take proper benefits from dreaming.

Yes, dreams do have benefits, or at-least that's what they say.

In some societies, dreams are used to cure illnesses. In some, dreams can be used to predict the future. These benefits do not seem to exist at all, but who believed in a light bulb before it was brought into existence? Imagine a world, where dreams could be used to make things right. Imagine a world where illusions could be used to construct a better reality. Believe in science. Have hope.