You might forget most of your dreams by breakfast, but the ones you do remember could be mirrors reflecting your fears, hopes, and hidden thoughts. Whether you’re falling, flying, solving a crime case, or being chased, your dreams could be trying to tell you something — if you know how to read them correctly.
Dreams are officially defined as being a series of thoughts, visions or sensations that arise during one’s sleep cycle. However, they are also extremely subjective. Despite being experiences that almost everyone has undergone, the science and meanings behind them are largely unknown, and many scientists, psychologists, and even spiritual followers have tried to explain what they are and why we have them. Some believe in the continuity theory, where dreams are images that reflect what has happened in someone’s day, while others think that dreams are more of a spiritual experience, serving as messages from gods or being predictors of the future — allowing individuals to foresee subsequent events. In fact, there are four main psychological theories that help explain why we have dreams.
- Wish-Fulfillment
In 1899, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud famously suggested that dreams serve the scientific purpose of acting out the desires that an individual can’t fulfill in real life. In other words, according to Freud’s model, dreams are essentially an escape from reality where anything could be possible. An example of a dream that reflects this model could be an impoverished child having a dream where they eat a full meal. The dream would not only be fulfilling their wishes but would also be testifying to their subconscious thoughts (since the child probably thought about food a lot, thus becoming an integral part of their subconscious).However, one limitation of this model was that it didn’t explain why we sometimes have traumatic dreams where we experience punishment or feel fearful. Therefore, Freud eventually edited his model and came to the overall conclusion that dreams are the manifestations of the unconscious brain working. Freud also believed that dreams required interpretation to understand their significance, and that the underlying meanings of dreams are not directly observable because they are often hidden or symbolized in the dream’s abstract content.
- Direct Mental Expressions
Carl Jung developed the theory that dreams act as direct mental expressions of the unconscious. Similar to Freud, he believed that dreams speak a particular “language,” revealing unconscious thoughts through metaphors and symbols. Jung also proposed that this language contains intrinsic, universal images shared by all human consciousness. Additionally, he argued that dreams either compensate for imbalances in the dreamer’s psyche (somewhat similar to Freud’s theory of wish fulfillment) or provide prospective images of the future, allowing the dreamer to anticipate upcoming events. Jung did not believe that dreams needed to be consciously interpreted to fulfill their purpose; instead, he thought that dreams themselves work to integrate the conscious and unconscious aspects of the mind through a process called individuation. In essence, Jung claimed that dreams offer crucial guidance toward becoming a “whole” individual by uniting conscious experience with the subconscious.
- REM/Activation-Synthesis
Contrastingly, in the 1970s, Harvard professors Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley thought of dreams in a more objective light. They found that during the REM (rapid eye movement) stage of sleep, electrical impulses called electroencephalogram recordings passed through the brain. They theorized that the brain tries to make sense of those random stimuli, and reacts by constructing vivid feelings, thoughts, or visions in the mind. Therefore, they claimed that dreams have no intrinsic meaning and just exist as by-products of the brain’s normal activity.
- Threat Simulation
I think we’ve all heard of the psychological fight-or-flight reaction that people have to threatening situations, but what if the brain could actually prepare us for such situations and serve as simulations of scary events? Antti Revonsuo, a Finnish psychologist, discovered that the amygdala — the fight-or-flight section of the brain — is activated during REM in similar ways as it does during a survival threat. He therefore concluded that the purpose of scary dreams is to rehearse for similar real life events so that threat recognition happens faster and the avoidance of threats becomes automatic.
In spite of these competing dream theories, what we do know about dreams is that they are extremely emotional experiences, often evoking psychological reactions. According to clinical psychologist Dr. Lori Tyler, there is a necessity for dreams to reach a certain emotional threshold — provoking a profound emotional reaction — in order for them to be remembered. That probably sounds pretty familiar, right? I think we’ve all had at least one dream where we’ve either woken up feeling extremely pleasant, almost to the point of euphoria, or one where we’ve woken up in a cold sweat, trembling with fear. And unfortunately, the dreams that typically are stored in our memory are the ones that frighten us the most, since fear, embarrassment, and anger are normally more intense emotions than happiness or tranquility. This is significant because understanding how you feel after a dream could expose what that dream is communicating about your subconscious, potentially revealing what you are afraid of, what you are excited about, or even helping you prepare for an event that may happen in real life.
I personally think that all of these theories of dreams can work simultaneously. It could be true that dreams are just the body’s reaction to the electric signals that the mind creates during REM, but, at the same time, it could also be true that the vivid images generated during this sleep stage could act as threat simulations or could be subconsciously fulfilling our wishes. But enough about my opinions. What do you think? Have you had a dream that seemed to perfectly fit into one of these models? Do you perhaps notice any patterns in terms of which of the theories your dreams typically fall into? Or have you not the slightest idea what any of your dreams mean?
Well, don’t worry.
Next time you wake up from a dream, I encourage you to try to remember it; talk to someone about it, write it down in a dream journal, or simply reflect and try to categorize your dream into one of the four theories. After all, your dreams are yours, and they may be silently revealing more about yourself than you realize.
Bibliography:
(MLA citations)
Healthline. “Science of Dreams: Why do we have Recurring Dreams?” YouTube, 19 April 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvvlKtMXpzI. Accessed 13 December 2025.
Hurd, Ryan. “The Dream Theories of Carl Jung.” Dream Studies Portal, https://dreamstudies.org/carl-jung-dream-interpretation/. Accessed 14 December 2025.
McLeod, Saul. “Sigmund Freud Dream Theory.” Simply Psychology, 24 January 2024, https://www.simplypsychology.org/sigmund-freud-dream-theory.html. Accessed 14 December 2025.
“The Psychology of Dreams: Inside the Dream Mind – Brescia University – Owensboro, Kentucky.” Brescia University, 23 September 2016, https://www.brescia.edu/2016/09/psychology-of-dreams/. Accessed 13 December 2025.
Redgrave, Samantha. “What are Dreams? – Moshi.” Moshi app, 14 July 2022, https://www.moshikids.com/articles/what-are-dreams/. Accessed 8 January 2026.