Why did you have that dream last night? You needed it

There’s a method in the madness; that’s the only way you can explain dreams. Dreams aren’t merely a collection of random, disconnected events; they’re intricately linked in ways that often defy logic. Yet, they have a purpose. It isn’t always completely random: There’s a reason you had that dream last night. You know the feeling—waking up disoriented and wondering if any of it was real.

Everyone has a dream that makes them feel that way. As Dubai-based Sheila Ray, a freelancer relates: She dreamed that she was busy just clearing out a house. She found herself in a cluttered room with piles of boxes and clothes that weren’t hers, while outside, children performed a song she once danced to in school. “It was so messy and confusing. I was getting messages from my late mother, while my aunt, was telling me that we needed to pack quickly,” she says.

She still doesn’t fully understand the dream’s meaning, but it came at a time when she was gripped by a fear of losing her job and dreading a return to India, weighed down by a sense of failure. “At that time in my life, everything was just chaos. My dreams were chaos, too,” laughs Ray.

Yet, there’s always some meaningful noise in the chaos.

The hidden purpose of dreams

Throughout history and across cultures, people have always seen dreams as important. Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, in his famous book The Interpretation of Dreams, suggested that dreams were a way to access the unconscious mind. He believed that dreams represented hidden wishes related to aggression and desires, which were often disguised through symbols and metaphors. According to Freud, dreams fulfilled unconscious desires.

The manifest and latent meaning of dreams

In his work, Freud had mentioned that dreams had both ‘manifest’ and ‘latent’ meanings. He believed that dreams had two layers of meaning: the manifest content (what you remember—like the people or places in the dream and the latent content, the hidden, deeper meaning—like feelings or unresolved issues the dream represents. For example, dreaming about being chased might just be the surface of the dream, but deeper down, it could be connected to feelings of stress or fear in your waking life.

In short, the manifest content is the dream as you remember it, while the latent content is the deeper, symbolic meaning that Freud believed the dream was trying to communicate about your unconscious mind. He maintained: These manifest meanings were chosen from our daily, waking life, including scenes from the past, perhaps our childhood.

However he also said nothing was quite random: There’s a reason why the unconscious mind chose that particular memory from a myriad of waking memories. Maybe some of these ideas were too ‘powerful’ to be perceived by the conscious state. So, they featured in the form of these different ‘symbols’ and metaphors.

For instance, Dubai-based Celina Higgins, an entrepreneur relates a peculiar dream with a recurring theme: She’s always crying. “It would be a normal dream at first, with ten different things happening. Yet, something always goes wrong, or rather I do something wrong. Somebody is always yelling at me, and I’m crying a lot in the dream, to the point that when I wake up, I actually believe that I’ve cried. For the first few seconds after I wake up, I feel a sense of anguish,” she says.

As she explains, she doesn’t know the concrete interpretations of her dreams, but she does have a fair idea. “I mean, I always do have a fear of upsetting people and them leaving me, so maybe that fear just seeps into my dreams,” she says.

That’s the unsettling part of dreams: Even if we never quite understand it, they still manage to shake us up, in some way. Nevertheless, while we still see metaphors and symbols in our dreams today, the understanding of their purpose has evolved. Current research shows that dreams serve much more than wish fulfillment.

The role of sleep in our dreams

According to a 2000 study titled The Role of Dreams in Memory Consolidation and Emotional Processing and a 2017 research study titled Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams, we need dreams to organise our thoughts, consolidating memories, integrating new skills and regulating our emotional well-being.

A key part of understanding why we dream lies in how our sleep cycles work. Throughout all stages of sleep, the brain processes new information, turns it into long-term memories, and connects it with what we already know.

The human body goes through two main types of sleep: Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, which is divided into three stages (N1 to N3). Each sleep cycle, which lasts about 90 minutes, includes all stages of sleep, and the body cycles through them about four to six times each night. Research has shown that we dream during both REM and NREM sleep, but these dreams serve different purposes. Non-REM dreams and REM dreams are believed to serve us in different ways.

What do the Non- REM dreams mean?

Ever dreamt of goalposts after football practice or equations after cramming for a test? Non-REM dreams often reflect recent activities, helping your brain process and store new skills or knowledge. A 2010 study titled Memory, Sleep and Dreaming: Experiencing Consolidation revealed that napping and dreaming about a learned task, like virtual navigation, improved performance—more so than simply thinking about it while awake. Sleep isn’t just rest; it’s a secret weapon for learning and memory.

REM dreams: A safe space for healing

REM sleep dreams take it a step further by offering emotional relief. As Matthew Walker highlights in his book Why We Sleep (2017), REM sleep reduces the impact of painful memories. During this phase, the brain shuts down noradrenaline, a chemical linked to anxiety, creating a stress-free zone to revisit and process emotions like fear or sadness. Dreams, it turns out, are more than just stories—they’re therapy sessions for your mind.

As Vartika Kohli, a Dubai-based psychologist explains, “Dreams can also be a safe space where your mind can explore things you might be avoiding in real life. If you’ve been feeling anxious, your dreams might take you on a wild ride, showing you situations that reflect those worries. These dreams might seem confusing at first, but they’re your mind’s way of helping you understand and process what’s happening.”

For example, if you're facing a challenging situation, like a tough conversation or a big decision, your dreams might reflect those feelings. You could dream of being trapped or stuck—symbolisng the way you feel in waking life. Once you start paying attention, you’ll notice that many of your dreams echo what’s happening emotionally or psychologically.

So, perhaps you needed that dream last night. They aren’t all ‘silly’ and ‘unimportant. Every dream you have is part of your brain’s natural process of making sense of the world around you. If you had a strange or intense dream recently, it could be your mind’s way of helping you come to terms with something you might not be fully aware of. Even dreams that seem unsettling—like falling, being chased, or losing something—are ways for your mind to bring up unresolved feelings. They give you the chance to confront those emotions in a safe space, so you don’t have to carry them around in your waking life.