From songs, to movies, to books about scientific theory, dreams are a part of the universal human experience. They can be vivid or abstract, and most of the time, they are not even remembered the next day. But why do we all share this strange phenomenon?

Some theorists take a scientific approach, and believe there is no supernatural meaning behind dreams, but instead it is the subconscious’s way of sorting through memories and complicated feelings from everyday life(healthline.com). This happens during the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) period of the sleep process, when the brainwaves are almost as active as they are when the person is awake (health.clevelandclinic.org). The visuals people get can come from experiences mixed with imagination.

Junior Maggie Sadiq conveys the power that the subconscious holds, and that dreams can help us comprehend things that the conscious mind cannot, mostly helping us process and cope with what happens in life. “They can also tell us a lot about ourselves, and how we perceive the world around us,” she says.

However, not all think it is so straight forward. Some attempt to interpret the dreams as a deeper experience, sometimes linking them to predicting the future or religious prophecies. This art is know as Oneirocriticism, and goes back to Greek mythology as a form of divination. Often throughout history the religious would association dreams with divinity, and would be hailed as Prophets amongst their followers.

Today, there are psychologists and even psychics who specialize in interpreting dreams. Theresa Chung is a spiritual Author who wrote several works helping people interpret them at home, including “The Dream Dictionary from A to Z”. She breaks down different symbols that may occur in a dream, and helps the reader to analyze what it may mean. For example, cats can mean creativity, power, and independence, or it they may luck or deception, depending on the situation.

These symbols may also predict the future in the eyes of psychics. Sadiq mentions that she has “dreamt of things happening before they ever actually happened,” and she knows people who have had similar precognitions. While this may just be the brain deceiving and coping with a situation, a similar phenomenon to déjà vu, there is always the possibility that people can predict the future, to an extent.