A theory why we dream and forget: Part one By Brett Caledon Gleed
It’s interesting to theorise that to dream is a self defence mechanism against our own mortality, we rarely remember our dreams after we wake but while we dream we become absorbed in its reality, we don’t often question our dreams while they are occurring but I believe it’s not a farfetched conclusion to think that it may act as a natural training program. Much like instinct in new born animals and how they respond to predators they have not confronted before.
Time clearly works differently in dreams; I think this may be so that we can build up an understanding of the world we are in in a shorter space of time. Our minds fill in the gaps instantly, because otherwise the illusion would essentially stumble, causing an interruption that will break the simulacrum. It’s interesting to think that no one is more suited to manipulate and fool us than our own self-conscious, our dreams a link to a deeper part of our being? Maybe this is related to multiple personality disorders, where this link has malfunctioned. I digress in dwelling on the idea that we have more levels of consciousness than we may know but it’s an interesting concept on which I will come back to at a later date.
I think we dream so that we can rationalise loss in a more stable and conventional way, and subconsciously learn of the fragility of what it is to be mortal. Once we forget a dream that is a whole world lost, people, locations, events, there have been moments when I have awoken and latched on to fading emotions as such memories slip away. However when we do remember moments from dreams we recall them in the same cognitive fashion as conventional memories, and yet we know that these memories are from dreams, why is that?
