ABSTRACT
In this chapter about dream research basics, several questions will be addressed – e.g., What is a dream? Are dream reports recollections of subjective experiences that occurred during sleep? How do we know that? Another topic is what researchers have learned about the content of dreams and how they relate to the waking life of the dreamer. The most influential concept is the so-called continuity hypothesis, stating, in its most general form, that we dream about the issues that are important to us. Lastly, a brief overview of possible dream functions is presented, but it is also outlined that, with the current state-of-the-art methodology, researchers cannot empirically test these theories about dream functions.
