Drying Our Dirty Dreams A common definition of dreams according to "Patterns for College Writing" is "the symbolic representation of mental states," but this poor definition does not begin to understand the complex mechanisms behind dreams and its effects on human culture around the world. Dreams have long been the subject of folklore and urban legends. Since the origins of man, people have tried to discover the origin of dreams. The ancient Greeks believed that dreams came from the god Oneiroi. The Chinese believe that dreams occur when the hun or spirit leaves the body for the land of the dead. The Ishi Indians believed that dreams were sacred messages from the gods. Yet even now, with current technological and intellectual advances, scientists and psychoanalysts have yet to find the true reasons and meanings of these dreams. Some argue that dreams are the product of an overactive subconscious mind, while others argue that dreams are purely random emotions coming from the limbic system during sleep. Despite these conflicting theories, the truth is that the topic of dreams and the reasons behind them remain a mystery. One of the most accredited theories in dream analysis, Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory of Dreams, attributes dreams to the deepest subconscious desires of human beings and primitive instincts due to the repression of the Super Ego. An important deduction that Freud used in formulating his theory is the concept that there are three parts to the human psyche: the superego, the ID, and the ego. (Freud) According to Freudian theories, each part of the psyche depends on each other, similar to the American government's system of checks and balances. The superego acts as a filter and limits the ID that presents… the middle part of the paper… the theory, the reversal learning theory and the activation synthesis model, others focus on mental exercise and on the simulations that dreams bring to us in the evolutionary theory of sleep. Although many theories agree that dreams are a representation of ideas and thoughts of the unconscious mind, no theory has been formed as the sole primary authority on the subject of dreams, despite increased support for some theories. The fact of the matter is that, despite rampant research and debate on the concept behind dreaming, these theories are simply speculation. But these speculations fuel curiosity about dreams and will hopefully lead to the expansion of dream analysis to not only better develop the current understanding of dreams, but also to help people around the world by possibly expanding dream analysis. dreams of becoming an early identifier of mental illness..