EigoPro 準2級プラス 読解 — Why Do We Dream?

Why Do We Dream? Almost everyone dreams, yet for thousands of years no one has been able to say with certainty why. Dreams can be strange, frightening, joyful, or so ordinary that we forget them the moment we wake. Despite all our modern science, the dreaming mind remains one of the great mysteries of human life. Old Beliefs In the distant past, many cultures believed that dreams were messages from gods or spirits, sent to warn or guide the dreamer. Kings sometimes kept wise advisers whose only job was to explain the meaning of royal dreams. While few scientists today accept these ideas, they show how seriously people have always taken the strange experiences of sleep. Modern Theories Today, researchers offer several explanations, though none is fully proven. One popular theory is that dreams help the brain sort through the events of the day, keeping useful memories and throwing away unimportant ones. Another suggests that dreams allow us to practice dealing with danger or difficult emotions in a safe, imaginary world. A third idea is simpler: that dreams are merely the brain's attempt to make sense of random signals during sleep. What Dreams Cannot Do It is worth noting what dreams almost certainly do not do. Despite many popular stories, there is no good evidence that dreams can predict the future. When a dream seems to "come true," it is usually because we remember the few dreams that match later events and forget the thousands that do not. A Continuing Mystery For now, the safest thing to say is that dreams probably serve more than one purpose, and that science still has much to learn. As one sleep researcher remarked, "We spend years of our lives dreaming, and we are only beginning to understand why."

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