Social Functions of Dreaming

        Dreams are a universal human experience, but little else can be objectively said about them. We may never know if they served an evolutionary purpose or if are just a side effect of another brain activity that helped us adapt to our environment. Dreams might be divine messengers, an expression of our unruly unconscious, or they may even predict the future. There are numerous ways dreams are considered significant or serve a function in an individual or a society. Irving Hallowell describes the role of dreams in Ojibwa culture in the first half of this century has having two purposes: the validation of the existence of spirits, and the re-inforcer of self-discipline.

        I will look at why people are so interested in dreams, and the ways in which we interpret them or make them useful in our lives. Also, I will look at how their functions are embedded in, and reflect, the dreamer's culture with examples from various ethnographies. There are many, sometimes contradicting, theories about why we dream in every culture, but there really are not any testable functional arguments for dreaming; rather, dreams are what we make of them.

Click on the links below to learn more about the social functions of dreaming: