A unicorn impales you. Then your teeth fall out. What does it all mean? The urge to interpret dreams is hard to resist.
Carey Morewedge at Carnegie Mellon University and Michael Norton at Harvard found that people in the U.S., South Korea, and India all prefer the Freudian theory that dreams reveal buried emotions over theories that dreams sort new memories, solve problems, or simply reflect random brain activity.
Furthermore, 68 percent of Boston commuters believe dreams foretell the future. They also said dreaming of a plane crash would make them anxious about flying—even more than would a warning from Homeland Security.
Even non-Freudians said they'd consider canceling a planned flight. In another survey, people said a dream about a friend defending them from harm would increase their glow of affection for that friend come daybreak. A dreamt betrayal wouldn't sully a friendship, though, suggesting that we invest more in agreeable dreams.
