Why Do We Dream?

Dozens of books have been written, countless studies have been made, and movies have been made on this subject. According to Williams Dement, dreams are the freedom for all of us to go insane for a short while each night. I think it's a nice answer but not satisfactory enough. The answer to a question that does not have a clear answer, such as a law of nature, will also vary depending on the person you ask. If you ask this question to a logical rational person, the answer will be very different, and if you ask a theologian person, it will be very different.

For example, professor of psychiatry Ernest Hartmann said in an article he published in 2006:

“Honestly, we haven't figured out the functions of dreaming yet. Dreams are processes that enable the processing of new information and experiences. In doing so, they prevent the traumas and stress that we will experience while awake.”

Thoughts that we would never think of normally and that we suppress consciously may be processed when consciousness is deactivated. But something is missing from this definition. I mean, it doesn't seem to tell everything. So let's look at it from another angle.

Matthew Walker, author of the book “Why We sleep, Unlocking The Power of Sleep and Dreams”, makes a similar definition in this book and says:

“Dreams provide resolution of the traumas and emotional outbursts we experience during the day. When we wake up the next day, these traumas are relieved.”

he same is true here. Many explanations similar to this proceed within this framework. Dreams allow the mind to be cleared. They even say it allows the elimination of physically toxic proteins and a more organized and clearer perception of all events.

Let's put a comma here and talk about the Achuar tribe. You may say it has nothing to do with the subject, but it definitely has a connection. The Achuars can open our horizons on this matter.

Living in the rainforests on the border of Ecuador and Peru, Achuars are a community that has continued their traditional lifestyle for hundreds of years. These people, who were contacted for the first time in the 1970s, never gave up on their traditions, although they were not completely disconnected from the modern world. 

In the 1990s, they met with the scariest face of the modern world. According to the researches, the lands inhabited by the Achuars turned out to be rich in oil, and the Ecuadorian government immediately passed a law allowing the extraction of oil from the lands where these people lived, leaving these virgin lands at the mercy of insatiable private companies. 

The Achuars ​​had to make a decision against this impending disaster. They will either make an agreement with the companies and leave their lands and live in the houses allocated to them, or they will not leave their lands even if it ends in death. To make this decision, they did what they have been doing for centuries. They slept. 

This is a traditional ritual that the Achuars resort to in such important and critical times. What they do is that the Achurians who go to sleep at night, wake up together in the morning before dawn and hold a kind of group ritual, drinking a plant called guayusa, which has a very strong stimulating effect. Everyone, of course, sees or hears certain things while under the influence of this herb. Images and sounds, which we call hallucinations, are an inner guide for Achuars. After the effect of the plant wears off, everyone shares their experiences. According to these sights and sounds, they make their decisions on behalf of the tribe according to this inner guide. This ritual, which they usually practice alone or in small groups, this time they decide to apply it together with all the tribes in the vicinity about what they will do against the oil companies. Dozens of tribes consisting of thousands of people wake up one night and drink guayusa, and each group shares their decisions with each other through ambassadors.

As a result, they do not leave their land. Oil exploration is also being terminated in the face of great resistance.

So what does this story tell us?

It tells a lot of course, but one of the things it tells is that dreams can be more than just the nonsense we see. What we see when consciousness is disabled may be our inner voice.

So, what are your dreams telling you?