You fight scary monsters; you live in a house made of chocolate; you don't have to go to school anymore. Where could all of these impossible things happen in my dreams?
A dream is a series of pictures, ideas and emotions playing in the mind during sleep. Humans spend one third of lives sleeping and six years dreaming. A person usually has three to five dreams a night, although one may not remember his or her dreams.
Many dreams, at least the ones we remember, are strange and interesting. That's why most people believe that dreams must have some deep meanings or important messages. However, people in different cultures have different understandings of the same dream.
For example, when dreaming of fire, Chinese people think of money. The Japanese would say it means "trouble". For people in the West, a dream of fire means something new is coming.
Scientists have very different ideas about the deep meaning of dreams. Some believe that a dream is only a normal process of sleep and doesn't tell us anything. Other scientists think that a dream is a direct message from one's mind. Dreams are like a window into one's wish and fears. For example, if you're very nervous about an exam, you may have nightmares of monsters running after you.
Technology also helps us to know more about dreams. In the film Inception, people enter others' minds while they are dreaming. Well, in real life we can do that, too. Scientists can now read people's dreams by scanning their brain activity during sleep. Would you let scientists look into your dreams?
