This article presents evidence in support of the theory that dreaming is imaginative play in sleep. Both play and dreaming are innate behaviors of our species that have the adaptive, survival-enhancing effect of stretching our minds beyond what is to imagine what might be. To explain why dreaming can best be conceived as a kind of play, the article draws upon research in evolutionary biology, neuroscience, developmental psychology, anthropology, religious studies, and therapeutic practices. The play theory of dreaming is capable of integrating these various sources of evidence into a clear conceptual framework that can account for many aspects of dreaming, including its connections with the biology of sleep, its overlap with the default network, the variability of dream recall, bizarreness, social content, threat simulations, post-traumatic stress disorder, and cultural and religious innovation.

中文翻译：

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做梦是睡眠中的想象游戏：一种关于梦的功能的理论。

这篇文章提供了支持做梦是睡眠中的想象游戏的理论的证据。玩耍和做梦都是我们这个物种与生俱来的行为，它们具有适应性、增强生存的作用，可以将我们的思想扩展到超出想象的范围。为了解释为什么做梦最好被视为一种游戏，这篇文章借鉴了进化生物学、神经科学、发展心理学、人类学、宗教研究和治疗实践的研究。做梦的游戏理论能够将这些不同的证据来源整合到一个清晰的概念框架中，该框架可以解释做梦的许多方面，包括它与睡眠生物学的联系、它与默认网络的重叠、梦境回忆的可变性、离奇、社交内容、威胁模拟、