As a child, you likely spent more time talking about your life dreams than you do now. And that’s probably because someone in your life told you that dreams aren’t an important part of life and they don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. But this isn’t true, at all. We need to have big dreams, as it is a critical part of feeling psychological fulfillment.

It Allows Us To Prepare For The Future

Not only is daydreaming fun, as you imagine all the things which could happen in your life, but according to National Geographic, daydreaming plays a critical part in preparing you for the future. Even if your dreams are somewhat crazy, or perhaps completely unattainable, having them helps you analyze possible obstacles which may pop up and helps you mentally prepare the solutions.

Thinking about our dreams helps to view a problem in a wider scope, broadening our chances of finding a solution. If a solution doesn’t come to mind while you are thinking about your dream, this doesn’t mean the thought is gone from your mind forever. In fact, studies have shown dreams stay on our mind for a long time, and we think about and reference them in a way which is healthy for our mental well-being.

They Help Us Reflect On The Present

Besides preparing you for the future, your dreams help you reflect and analyze the past AND the present. This is critical because it helps you learn from your mistakes and keeps you from making the same ones over and over again.

Dreams also help you process things which may have happened in your past and determine which of these memories need to become a part of your psyche and which need to be forgotten. When connections are made between people and events during a dream, it helps us understand the motives and body language of others.

It Stimulates Your Brain

Besides helping us learn and create solutions to problems, dreams stimulate a neural network in a part of your brain that isn’t usually used while you complete an assigned task. Scientists aren’t quite sure what these parts of your brain do, but one study found that people who activate these portions of their neural network tended to report a greater level of satisfaction with their lives as a whole.

Additionally, University of British Columbia researcher, Melissa Ellamil, found that people who daydream typically generate more creative thoughts when it comes to problem solution. They even found that learning to control your daydreams and keep them “close” to the topic you are studying can help you learn the subject more effectively.

This control factor is important, as those in the study who were told to let their minds wander completely away from their tasks, found they had little recollection of the tasks when they were asked to reign in their mental wanderings and focus on them once more.

Next time you find your mind drifting to a dream, let it, because it will help you visualize a possible future. It will also help you process the present and it may even help stimulate your brain. Make sure you don’t let your mind wander during an important discussion, however, or you may find that even in your wildest dreams, you can’t remember what was said!

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2021 issue of CHOICES Magazine