The first dream known to the world was recorded by the Sumerian king in about 2500 BC. At the same time, the first known interpretation of dreams appeared - the king's sister saw it as a warning.
Since then, people have not changed much, they still try to solve the secret messages of dreams, hoping to find in them a clue or a prediction. And what options does science offer?
Dreams are practically applicable predictions
Even if you've never opened the Bible, you've probably heard the story of the Egyptian Pharaoh's dreams there. The ruler dreamt that seven lean cows were eating seven fat cows, and seven lean ears were full of ears. Pharaoh called for Joseph's help, who explained to him that Egypt was waiting for seven years of abundance and seven years of hunger.
Psychologist Kelly Bulkeley, author of The Science of Dreams and the Origins of Religion, says such miracles are the basis of one of the most useful functions of dreams: to help people prepare for it: "We do it constantly in a waking state. We are thoughtful. It will be cold in winter, so it would be good to stock up on food. Everything we do depends on our ability to anticipate the future. The mind and brain are a continuously working system, and this "preparatory" thinking continues while we sleep.
Balkeley believes that the shortest definition of dreams is a "game of imagination", most often related to the future: "Aristotle also noticed that during sleep, when we are not concerned about minor everyday worries, fleeting impressions can give us a better idea of the future.
Evolutionary psychologists claim that our minds are visualizing the potential dangers of the outside world in our sleep. Thus the psyche prepares for them - regardless of whether we remember this dream.
Dreams tell us what to do
The psychiatrist historian George Macari in his book "The Invention of the Modern Mind" tells us about Descartes' series of dreams, which made him realize that "the problems of space can be reduced to algebraic", and the world of nature obeys mathematical rules. This has changed the scientific concept of reality.
Freud's dream the night before his father's funeral in October 1896 led the psychoanalyst to write "Interpretation of dreams" - he dreamed of a note with a message: "You need to close your eyes.
Abraham Lincoln often had dreams. According to the memories of one of the colleagues, bright visions visited the president the night before each "great and important event of the war. Rumor has it that a few days before Lincoln's murder, he had several dreams of having a funeral at the White House.
Dreams are messages from the unconscious
At the turn of the 20th century, Sigmund Freud thought that dreams were the messages of our unconscious: "The interpretation of dreams is the main way to know the unconscious activity of the mind. The purpose of dreams, in his opinion, is to realize suppressed desires. Their meaning can be understood as associative.
His student and rival Carl Jung considered dreams from a more perspective. Dreams, he said, are the way to those parts of the mind that lie beyond our consciousness.
They are designed to communicate certain messages to us through universal yet personalized symbols. So the dream of a partner who has left you can be seen as a sign that you are missing an opportunity.
Jungian Maxon McDowell, who has been using the interpretation of dreams in his therapeutic practice for 29 years, believes that a dream is "a message to our consciousness about the guesswork and insights that a person considers important and necessary, and an attempt to "understand himself".
Dreams are a set of data
Serious dreams began to be explored in the 1950s, after Eugene Aserinsky and Nathaniel Kleitman of the University of Chicago opened the fast sleep phase. Today, brain image scientists are beginning to identify the "essence" of dreams, teaching them algorithms to recognize what brain activity looks like while awake.
The aforementioned Balkeley has created a Dream and Dream Database, which has collected more than 20,000 dreams from volunteers around the world. According to him, the characteristic psychological themes are already visible now. For example, people rarely dream alone, and most often we dream about those to whom we are emotionally attached: "Dreams reflect what concerns us in our relationship. Dreams are a way to assess our relationships, to understand who we care about and what we care about. And inspire us to act.
Dreams are the work of our memory
Neurobiologists claim that the kaleidoscope of images in dreams is a by-product of the memory creation process. When different threads of our experience connect together, the result seems to us to be both familiar and alien at the same time.
These fantastic, complex images have nothing to do with consciousness," says Sue Lewellin, a researcher at Manchester University. - They are not "real", because they are a mixture of several different memories. During the rapid sleep phase, these images are perceived as dreams.
The same process also helps learning. Scientists once conducted an experiment: the participants were asked to understand the virtual labyrinth and then take a nap. Those of them who dreamt about the labyrinth they had just completed had a more successful retest.
Biologists at the University of Chicago, led by Daniel Margoliash, examined the brain of sleeping zebra amadeen. Scientists found that his activity is the same as in awake birds when they sing to attract a partner. Asking the bird what she dreamed she wouldn't be able to do, alas, but they seem to be hone their abilities in her sleep.