Dreams

Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, as well as a subject of philosophical and religious interest, throughout recorded history. The scientific study of dreams is called oneirology. Scientists believe that, in addition to humans, certain birds and the majority of mammals also dream.

Famous quotes containing the word dreams:

“Who dreams of a son,
save one,
childless, having no bright
face to flatter its own,
who dreams of a son?”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)

“If there were dreams to sell,
Merry and sad to tell,
And the crier rung the bell,
What would you buy?”
—Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803–1849)

“We are afloat
On our dreams as on a barge made of ice,
Shot through with questions and fissures of starlight
That keep us awake, thinking about the dreams
As they are happening. Some occurrence. You said it.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)