Dreams are a very heavy thing. Simply put, dreams are a stream of images, sounds, and actions of something; like a movie. But the dreams could never be explained. The Greeks and Romans claimed that dreams were signs from their gods and had prophetic magic (www.scientificamerican.com). Although the purpose of dreams was not discovered, a huge movement in the study of dreams occurred in the late 19th century. In 1952, Chicago scientists discovered electrical readings during a certain stage of sleep. When waking up in this stage, people almost always remember their dreams. This stage is the only stage of sleep in which we dream and is known as the REM stage (YouTube.com). During REM sleep your brain behaves as if it were awake, with one small difference. Chemicals such as norepinephrine, serotonin and histamine are blocked. This causes your body to become paralyzed so that you cannot act on your dreams. That said, it's possible to suddenly wake up and no longer be able to move because your body hasn't stopped blocking chemicals from entering your system. REM sleep is the deepest sleep phase. At this stage the heart rate and breathing become inconsistent. REM sleep is very important, even though it only takes up about 25% of the sleep cycle. Without REM sleep, your body is tired and can't remember things. Your body, even if it is paralyzed at this stage, relaxes. REM sleep is vital for the body, although we don't know exactly why. Without knowing it, it affects theories about why we dream. (YouTube.com)There are many theories about why we dream. Some of them fall into the religious side of things, but most are… middle of paper… The association between emotion and symbol helps the brain recognize emotions and weave them into our personal story. Ultimately, this hypothesis leads us back to the narrative component of dreams. We seem to use these bizarre images and ideas to make sense of the day's events, to transform random neural activation into something coherent, and even to understand how we should feel about what has happened to us. There is no doubt that dreams play an important role in our mental processes. The question, however, remains: is this an evolutionary adaptation or simply an extraordinary accident? (10 Theories That Explain Why We Dream) Whether you believe they are a distraction or an adaptation, dreams are still a mystery. Scientists and society will be able to ponder interpretations of their meaning and origins until the end of time. Until then we will continue to dream!