In my dreams, I may "express" fantasies, like flying, or jumping ridiculous heights, or falling from such heights without hurting myself like a super cat/ninja hybrid, or giving enthralling musical performances. I never express repressed desires though. Like, if a girl has rejected me in real life, she usually does the same in the dreams. If in real life I wouldn't dare touch, say, her butt, I'm just as restrained in my dreams.

One reason it might be one of the 10 most important questions in science is that dreaming helps solve problems. When you sleep on a problem the mind magically presents an answer to the problem the next day. Aside from it's metaphorical implication that it's important to dream big, dreaming could literally help answer the other 9 questions.

I find it intriguing HN readers don't consider it important, actually.

>I find it intriguing HN readers don't consider it important, actually.

Understanding dreams (and consciousness) is really tied to understanding the human brain. I would consider that, in general, to be one of the questions of science, not dreaming specifically.

After all, is the phenomenon of dreams that much more interesting than, say, the phenomenon of memories and recollection, or emotional experience, or learning, or anything else brain-related?

It's not clear to me how one can make themselves dream.

You can stimulate memories and recollection, induce emotional experience, and can initiate learning with known ways that work, even if the understanding of how they work isn't fully developed.

Are there known ways to stimulate a dream?

How do you know dogs don't have repressed desires?

hah. Touche.