Imagination makes snoozin' amusin'!

Does your brain have a mind of its own, or is it just hiding information from you? Many people can think back to a time when they've had a dream that actually helped them remember something in real life. But how does your brain know more than your conscious self? For those Space Cadets who spend the day imagining away, I'm sure there has been an instance where you have completely forgotten about something for hours, days, weeks. Just recently, I lost a few very important objects due to my forgetfulness. What I found amazing was not the mere fact that I remembered losing anything, but the way I came about remembering I what I had lost.

Imagine the scene: It's a Friday morning. The sun is out and you are, unusually, waking up early for school. You slept the whole night before. There was nothing that would have triggered such an odd dream as the one you just experienced. You were preparing for your wedding day. You ran and grabbed your boots, your dress clothes, and as you were preparing, you were repeating a speech in your dream-self's head that you had to present. But...what's this? The rings for the marriage! You forgot them!...cue awakening. The amazing part? Those boots and dress clothes you rushed to get on, you would rush to get on the same objects that day after school in preparation for an Academic Decathlon. The speech? That was one of your categories for said Decathlon. The rings you had forgotten? Those were the same rings that, in pain from being in the middle of writing an essay yesterday, you took off and placed on the desk at school. They were the rings that somehow you forgot to take with you and were now lost. The rings somebody very special gave to you as a gift; a promise. They are the same rings you didn't even remember until your dream reminded you.

Most likely, thoughts on this is "That's insane!" but no, it's true. My dream reminded me of something even my conscious self forgot. The reasoning? There are many theories on dreams relating to the imagination. The theory I humor the most is the Cognitive Theory of Dreams where it is stated by Calvin Hall that,

“The images of a dream are the concrete embodiments of the dreamer’s thoughts; these images give visual expression to that which is invisible, namely, conceptions." - The Meaning of Dreams (1966)

So you mean that my dreams are just extended and in-depth thoughts I have while sleeping? Maybe. Maybe not. Nobody knows yet the reasoning behind dreaming. What do I believe? I believe that dreams are a world where experience meets imagination. Seems logical enough, right?

To learn more about the Cognitive Theory of Dreams, visit this link:

http://dreamstudies.org/2009/12/03/calvin-hall-cognitive-theory-of-dreaming/

Stay in the clouds, Cadets...