A single definition for dreaming is most likely impossible given the wide spectrum offields engaged in the study of dreaming, and the diversity in currently applied definitions. Many studies do not specify a definition, yet results are likely to be comparable only when comparable definitions of the topic are used. The alternative is to develop a classification system organizing the multiplicity of definitions for dream. A dream should not be exclusively defined as a non-conscious electrophysiologic state. Dreaming is, at least in part, a mental experience that can be described during waking consciousness. Definitions for dreaming should be utilized in research and discussion which address the various axes which define dreaming: Wake/sleep, Recall, and Content.

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A literary and phenomenological approach to the possible meaningfulness of dreams and fictions that would include both "unifying concepts" (Globus, 1991) and the unspecifiable emotional meanings carried by experience itself. The essay examines the difficulty of pinning down the term meaning in metaphorical constructions. An attempt is made to apply Gadamer's concept of the unity of experience and Gendlin's notion of "felt meanings" to both fictions (Hamlet) and dreams.

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This paper examines the possible role of dreams and other forms of virtual worldmaking (chiefly fictions) in forming and maintaining our adaptive systems. I posit no exclusive function for the dream. Rather, I treat it as an extension of fiction's preoccupation with our daily concerns, desires and fears. I suggest that narratives help us to enlarge and revise our perceptual and response systems, not by offering us moral or ethical propositions to live by but by increasing certain skills in our mental organization. Departing from John Paulos' idea that fictions and mathematics (narratives and numbers) work in similar ways, I further examine the role that probability ratios might play in dreams, despite the seeming bizarreness of many dreams. The overall idea is that narratives of all sorts are one cognitive means, among many, by which we accumulate "sums" of knowledge and expectation, and maintain and revise our notions of what goes with what in human experience. I also look briefly atfictional archetypes (Oedipus, Orestes/Hamlet, etc.) and universal dreams (falling, being lost or attacked, etc.) as master plots in our probability systems.