Why do people dream? Dreams occur in order to maintain our mental and emotional balance (Parker & Parker, 1985, p. 41). Dreaming can help an individual understand an emotional imbalance if they try to find meaning. Some studies suggest that dreaming is a way of classifying and sorting memories. Short-term memory would be overloaded if unimportant or insignificant thoughts were not broadcast elsewhere. Even the unnoticed things of the day are filed away and are then brought back by surprise in a dream. Dreams are a very stimulating experience and these experiences help develop and strengthen the neural pathways in the brain. Dreams help make sense of neural static by triggering neural activity that evokes random visual memories, which the sleeping brain weaves into stories to make sense of the activity. Dreams reflect cognitive development, with the content reflecting the cognitive development, knowledge, and understanding of the dreamer (Myers 2014). Traditional Dream Theories The fascination with dreams since the dawn of time has produced numerous theories about the meaning of dreams. From before Christ, the ancients “considered the dream not as a product of the dream psyche, but as an inspiration from the realm of the divine… they distinguished precious and truth-revealing dreams, sent to the sleeper to warn him or tell him the future. for him, vain, deceptive and idle dreams intended to lead him astray or plunge him into ruin” (Freud, 1999, p. 8). Sigmund Freud, considered the father of psychology, is perhaps the most famous dream theorist with his work on the interpretation of dreams. He believed that the dream was a disguised expression of the dreamer's desires and that these desires were almost always sexual. It bel...... middle of paper ......1286-1289.Parker, D. and Parker, J. (1985). The Complete Book of Dreams. New York, NY: Harmony Books. Schlachter, G.A. (1998). Current questions: Freudian interpretation of dreams and the reference interview. Reference and User Services Quarterly, 269-272. Schredl, M. and Erlacher, D. (2008). Relationship between waking sports activities, reading and dream content in sports students and psychology students. The Journal of Psychology, 267-275. Sigmund Freud, T. b. (1999). The interpretation of dreams. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. Stickgold, R., Hobson, J., Fosse, R. and Fosse, M. (2001). Sleep, learning and dreams: Offline memory reprocessing. Science, 1052-1057. van den Daele, L. (1996). Direct interpretation of dreams: neuropsychology. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 253-268.Yu, CK-C. (2012). The effect of sleeping position on dream experience. Dream, 212-221.