WHY DO WE HAVE DREAMS

by Chitragupt Pariwar (Hum Kayasth) on Wednesday, August 25, 2010 at 5:44pm

Different people have different kinds of views regarding the origin of dreams. Mostly these views are based on speculation. Scientists too have deeply studied the dreams. They say that the dreams are an outcome of the unique quality of our brain.
Brains of all higher animals including humans have two parts- 1) Conscious and 2) Sub-conscious. Conscious part of the brain is active during the awakened hours. It directly interacts with our immediate external environment. Sub-conscious part or mind on the other hand is always alert and keeps on working even when we are asleep. It is in fact a sink for the conscious mind and interacts constantly with our internal environment.
When we are awake, innumerable kinds of thoughts constantly appear in our conscious minds. Like ripples, these thoughts appear, stay for a moment and then disappear. Have you ever wondered where these thoughts go? Into our sub-conscious mind that always keeps on receiving these thoughts and dissipating them to nowhere, as is presumed usually. But these thoughts do not die out according to our presumption. Our sub-conscious mind has its unique way of disposing them. It plays these thoughts to us as dreams.
Desires are nothing but powerful thoughts. No matter how high a position a man is enjoying, he would not be free from desires. A rich man might desire to achieve something so that his name could become immortal. Even an ascetic who has renounced the world might have a desire for having some mystical but miraculous powers. All it means to say that desires do not leave a man till death. Even the action that one undertakes in order to attain salvation are in fact guided and driven by desire.
Now a question naturally arises: 'Do all the desires that one might have materialize?' Not all of them. Most of the desires of most people remain unfulfilled for one reason or another. Everyone has his physical as well as mental limits. Surprisingly most of the people desire for things or achievements that are beyond their limits. Our sub-conscious mind has a unique way of coping with ever increasing desires. It shows those unfulfilled desires as dreams in our sleep. Thus, in a way, dreams are nothing but those desires that are beyond our limit and are hence largely unfulfilled.
In dreams, we get such things that we cannot enjoy in our awakened period. In our dreams we can even make love to sexy, glamorous film heroines, something that is impossible during awakened state