You are walking through a forest with your flippers on, and you are texting something important to someone, but you cannot seem to remember whom. Your grandma and your best friend from elementary school pass you on a floating sofa. They wave, and you know they are waving, but you cannot wave back because you are texting. Then you step onto a conveniently placed skateboard and roll away. You wake up, and within five minutes you do not remember anything except for failing to wave at your grandma.

Everyone dreams. In fact, dreaming is such a part of the sleeping routine that people have theorized about the meaning and function of them since the earliest of recorded histories, according to the National Sleep Foundation. No one has found out why people do imagine these complicated and sometimes-frightful situations during resting hours, but experts have devised several reasons behind the meaning of dreams. First developed by Aristotle and Plato, and later furthered by European psychoanalysts, the hypothesis defines dreaming “as a way to act out unconscious desires in a safe or “unreal” setting, presumably because to do so in reality would be unacceptable or even detrimental.” This explains why people, especially those younger in age, can experience both bizarre and frighteningly realistic dreams.

Although scientists have yet to fully discover the “why” factor, studies have recently shown a great deal of neurological activity during REM sleep, or Rapid Eye Movement sleep. This stage of the resting process is when people have the most vivid dreams; if a person is awakened during this stage of sleep, they are likely to recall their bizarre dreams with great detail, according to a study performed in 1953 by Eugene Aserinsky, a graduate student in physiology, and Nathaniel Kleitman, PhD, chair of physiology at the University of Chicago.

Studies show that dreams may just be a by-product of these neurological brain functions during sleep. Another hypothesis, developed by Rosalind Cartwright, PhD, Professor and Chairman, Department of Psychology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, centers around the idea that “dreams are the mechanism whereby the brain incorporates memories, solves problems and deals with emotions.” This closely cooperates with theories that claim that dreams are essential for a person’s health.

Before the discovery of REM, most scientists believed that the brain was essentially inactive during sleep. Scientists have later found the importance of REM sleep, according to the National Sleep Foundation. In 1960, in a study conducted by William C. Dement, MD, PhD, “the psychological effects of REM deprivation were discovered by waking subjects just as they began dreaming.” The subjects experienced a wide range of symptoms, including “increased tension, anxiety, and irritability, difficulty concentrating, an increase in appetite with consequent weight gain, lack of motor coordination, feelings of emptiness, depersonalization, and hallucinatory tendencies.” This pioneering study proved the profound importance of dreaming and the consequences that sleep deprivation can have on the human body.

Sleep is an important part of every student’s life. Dreaming is an essential and daily component to the resting process; without it, students would fail to function as normal individuals. To best benefit one’s body, every student should aim to get eight to nine hours of sleep per night.