Why do we dream? A product of our brain's neurophysiology, dreaming is a complex experience that can take on many emotional tones and simulate reality to varying degrees. As a result, there is still no clear answer to this question. A study compared the dreams of two forager communities, in Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo, with those of individuals living in Europe and North America. It showed that the first two groups produced more threatening, but also more cathartic and socially-oriented dreams than the Western groups. These results show how strong are the links between the socio-cultural environment and the function of dreams.
