What are dreams? For that matter, what is sleeping? We spend at least a third of our time sleeping and perhaps also dreaming, in fact, sleeping and dreaming can almost define us more than anything else we will ever do or achieve in our lifetime, and yet so rarely we stop to wonder about their real significance, and how it could actually change the world.
Why do we need to sleep? Every single mechanical machine we have created requires fuel or energy to function, like oil, gas, hydro-electricity, nuclear energy, solar energy, etc. And yet, they could function all the time until they finally break down, and still they can be repaired on the spot and made to work for many more years. They don't need to sleep, they certainly don't need to dream.
Our fuel as humans is food and water (liquids). Why the need to sleep on top of it? Many of our appliances simply work on electricity, especially electronic appliances like computers and televisions. Just like us they need electricity, as we are very much electric human beings ourselves, although what we need is more chemically based electricity that we produce with whatever we eat and drink.
Our appliances, or go even further, our computers and thinking robots don't need to sleep. Moreover, they certainly don't dream? We may wonder if anything we invented which includes silicon based artificial intelligence or computer chips, might actually dream like we do. How would we ever know?
I sometimes think my computer is alive, or am I just going mad? After all, silicon based intelligence (computers), or carbon based intelligence (us), are so similar when we look at a Table of the Elements, we are next to each other, how could we possibly be that different then? As a humanity we are all but thinking machines.
It is not because we have not thought of inventing such machines that require sleeping and dreaming that we could not invent them. Which means that eventually, if we can see the point of creating such machines, we can create them, and we will. It would simply only require a bit of programming. But before we go on to invent computers who require sleep and will go on dreaming, we would need to assess why this would be a necessity. I cannot see why we should program our thinking machines to sleep and dream, do you? So why do we sleep and dream?
Sleeping has one more important characteristic that we cannot forget so easily, it is rejuvenating. After exerting ourselves too much through a stressful existence, it brings us back to life, because it is also that sleep cures us of many health problems. It is through a moment of absolute inactivity that our body fixes itself, regenerates itself to peak activity. We can only assume that if we were into building biological machines instead of mechanical or electronic machines, sleep would be a great idea. But what about dreams?
I have read many books about dreams, all those experts, it left me totally empty, I still have no clue about why we should be dreaming, what purpose it serves. I can see that once again I will have to find my own answers. Not only our body needs a rest in order to rejuvenate itself, or regenerate itself, our mind as well is as important. Dreaming, though certainly it is not a peaceful activity, since sometimes it can be as stressful as our daily life, seems to be highly important for balancing our mind, our thoughts.
Prevented from reaching REM sleep, when most dreams occur, it is said that we quickly go crazy and start imagining things right here in this reality. We suddenly hear voices, we see things that no one else can see. It would be hard to deny that this is not the fruit of our imagination, it most likely is imagination gone wild. And what is imagination for that matter?
Why can't we just be practical human beings, only thinking in practical terms? Dreaming is therefore essential, we can only exist as wild thinking beings. Without dreams and imagination and wild thinking, if this was a world solely based on realities as it is described to be, we would simply go mad. Read that all over again, you will get it eventually.
Our computers, or any of our created artificial intelligence machines, don't dream, we never thought it was necessary. They have no imagination either, they only compute and follow carefully written programs. Maybe they do dream, we just don't know, do we? Could computers dream even though we would have failed to program them to do so? Perhaps.
This is a frightening thought, since maybe we were not meant to dream in the first place. Is dreaming an accident, as it come to be in time for some reason or another, through simple evolution? Or is it by design that we dream, through some creator of some sort, some programming? I don't know.
It is however an important question. Perhaps less how it came to be, but for what purpose we either developed this ability to dream or that it was felt necessary that we should dream. What is the purpose of dreams? Relaxing the mind, rejuvenating our thoughts, the cogs in our mind? Somehow I think this is more than that. Dreams could in fact be more significant than we ever thought possible.
First of all, dreams can be compared to films and PC adventure games, video games. There is a significant difference between dream and our reality when awake. In dreams we don't spend an eternity eating, going to the toilets, washing or brushing our teeth. We don't usually get into interminable routines of doing the same thing everyday, getting up, eating breakfast, going to work, spending a lifetime making money for our survival whilst making a fortune for someone else, or simply helping our fellow citizens through services.
In dreams we quickly move from scene to scene of a film, to the important moments of some imagined existence which still has a past that we know of within the dream, and thoughts whilst it is happening, even though we are perplexed to explain such a thing once we wake up. A dream has an entirely internal logical existence all on its own, ready to evaporate once we wake up, unless we make an effort to remember the dream once we wake up. Are dreams really supposed to bring us some stability, some sanity over this pitiful and boring reality we all suffer from every day? Maybe.
Dreams are imagination, pure creativity out of our control. You take anything of any existence, anything you hear and see anywhere at anytime, and suddenly with it all, you create a whole world of fantasy, and even sometimes a whole world of science fiction, all in your own mind whilst asleep.
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