Since the only side-effect of not sleeping is that you go crazy, it's beleived that dreams are simply to filter out the useless thoughts to refresh your brain. staying awake overlaods your brain. but then sometimes dreams do mean something. and what about the times where you dream something and then it actually happens? has that ever happened to anyone else? i once dreamt that my ex best mate got a job in Marco's (A fish and chip shop) and the next day i found out she did. scared the crap outta me lol
another theory is that you're subconscience is trying to tell you things or warn you about something or to help you with something. which i suppose could be true. especially with the re-ocurring ones. when i was a kid, i constantly had a dream about being kidnapped, locked in a cage, thrown into the sea, to be rescued just before drowning, then the people who saved me turned out to be evil and were going to use me as a slave, so i escaped from them, almost drowned again, to be rescued by another ship, where i met someone else who told me they were cannibals and were going to eat us, so we escaped, swam to the island, where we were ok for a while, until the natives lured us to their village, and were going to use us for some kind ofsacrifice for some kind of ritual, and i usually woke up around then. i think my subconscience was telling me that life is just one piece of crap after the other no matter how hard you fight, and not to be fooled when things seems to be turning out alright.
but yeah, i really don't know what dreams are for.
