What ARE dreams? Why can't anyone agree on their purpose?

I've read online various opinions, no one knows for sure. Psychoanalysists think its your subconscious telling you things about yourself and your current experiences and feelings. Sleep researchers believe its your mind processing or even dealing with the information you've been dealt with for the day, or some side-effect of REM sleep. A more New-Ager or paranormalist way of thought is they are messages from another plane of existence, and can basically be prophetic and dreams can divine information about past-lives, things going on currently that we aren't aware of, and things to come.



All these different things, but it seems no one, psychologists, scientists or other, has yet come up with anything conclusive. I understand the brain is one of the most complex things to try and understand but even still, its mind boggling that such a bizarre, sometimes almost freaky, yet universal part of the human experience and one of the most unique elements of our daily perception, is one of the least understood.



My great-grand-aunt's husband was a fighter pilot in the war. She had a dream one night of him being shot down and killed. She woke up to a phone call informing her of just that. Granted, she was probably worried about him all the time so dreams like that may be expected, but nonetheless am always fascinated by that story, and wanted to share to you as I conclude my question's details. Interested to hear the discussion of this question.What ARE dreams? Why can't anyone agree on their purpose?
Dreams are like "rehearsals" for real life. You experience emotions and stuff. I read that somewhere and I agree. They also help you learn things. When you're sleeping your mind works things out and commits them more to memory/understands them and that's why sleeping is beneficial to learning.What ARE dreams? Why can't anyone agree on their purpose?
Subconscience mind, conscious mind deal, process info when we are least distractd, our senses have calmed down. Conscious mind can tun into subconscious mind %26amp; pick up few thing which turn out to be very true. I began having true dreams in my 30's-i could tell which one would come true, it went on for years-i had no control abour what i wish to dream-for that requires lots of training. After 20yrs that ability left me-i wasn't a psychic, coincidentally my conscious mind was tuning into my subconscious mind quite regularly-deatils were to the point, and word per word.