What Causes Dreams

• Throughout their history, people have sought meaning in dreams or divination through dreams
• They have been described physiologically as a response to neural processes during sleep, psychologically as reflections of the subconscious, and spiritually as messages from God or predictions of the future
• Many cultures practiced dream incubation, with the intention of cultivating dreams that were prophetic or contained messages from the divine.

Dreams were historically given over for healing (as in the asclepieions found in the fossil Greek temples of Asclepius) as well as for guidance or divine inspiration. Some Native American tribes worn vision quests as a rite of passage, fasting go and praying until an anticipated guiding dream was received, to be shared with the rest of the tribe upon their return.