Until now, why we dream has remained a mystery to science. But, by piecing together the most recent scientific findings and psychological understandings, and adding groundbreaking discoveries of his own, Joe Griffin has revealed what turns out to be a strikingly simple and satisfying explanation for why we dream and why the content of our dreams is so very often bizarre. He and co-author Ivan Tyrrell convincingly show that dreaming is vital for mental health (even though remembering dreams is not) and that the sleep state we associate with dreaming (the REM state) also has crucial importance when we are awake. Indeed, this understanding of the REM state explains not only how our brains construct a model of reality in our minds, but also hypnosis, creativity, and why we develop mental illnesses such as depression and psychosis. Full of fascinating real life stories and dream case histories, Dreaming Reality gives readers the key to understanding their own remembered dreams, explains why day-dreaming was, and is, crucial to human development, and why stories and metaphors have universal appeal. It is a book that will change lives.