We dream primarily the same way that we have consciousness of the world for the same reason. Basically, that our brains evolve to simulate reality and to control what's happening around us.

Shamanism is the oldest form of communicating and healing. It probably resides in all of us.

I think the neural pathways in our brains affect what happens in our bodies, and so can alter our health.

I try to see what the dream might be referring to - because the information in the world is being interpreted by my brain which only has the concepts derived from our five senses. So I think of the sequences in my dream as my brain doing its very best to process information in a way it knows I can deal with.

I think both science and art are impelled by curiosity: What's really happening? How do things really function? How can I really engage with the world around me? These are questions that artists and scientists both ask.

I agree that dreams seem to be involved in laying down memories but I realise that dreaming gives us access to a part of our brain we do not normally have access to.

Stories that are real, that create you, rather than be created by you, are powerful.

I know I have different priorities when I am close to dreaming and coming out of dreaming. I notice I am connected to people in a different way, and connected to the earth. For me, I have exactly the same emotional responses when I go through into shamanic trance.

I am sure that there is a lot more going on in the objective real world than we can monitor with our five senses. I think dreams allow us to engage with the real world and monitor the way it is acting on us.

We forget most of our dreams because we don't have access to those parts of our brain once we are switched to wakefulness. But why we evolved that way is a puzzle to me.

One thing I love is to stop doing. When I just STOP and start looking, I enter a state that is much more dreamy, and find I look at things quite differently. It seems like a change in scale - both very close up, and simultaneously very distant.

I like the way dreams present themselves as words and images that are trying to get your attention using your model-making brain's ability to make up stories.

A recurring dream probably merits close attention. Something wants you to pay attention.