its difficult doing research on the state of dreaming.
for one, its a niche within a niche- it involves both the science of sleep and memory under the science of the brain, and it involves psychological interpretation from many different modalities. we dont, and may never, have full understanding of the brains processes- which leads to our material understanding of dreams being amorphous (that and the relative youth of the field).
secondly, the concept of dreams are a cultural touchstone almost everywhere on earth. theyre heavily wrapped up in religious mythology, storytelling, psuedo-scientific assumptions and biases. unlike, idk, DNA-sequencing where if you dont know what it is youll probably not have any thoughts on it, everyone has an opinion or personal belief about dreaming because we've all either experienced it, know people who have, or learned about it within the context of a narrative device.
and thirdly from a selfish american point of view, the wests pre-concieved notions seem to dominate those spheres of thought. even in foreign literature or scientific studies-
(because im only fluent in english, and i know this is a heavy bias to my research, but there is more romance language carry-over than say, Bangali or Swahili. this cant Just be due to language structure, it also has to do with colonization. what im saying is that within this limited scope, its annoying how few of our writings try to look outside ourselves. maybe partly due to how personal dreaming is? but if schizophrenia can change its hallucinations based on different cultures/regions, imagine how different dreams may be sensory wise too. it is frustrating.)
-you rarely see hypothesis presented by someone who is not a grifter from california. im exagerrating a bit out of annoyance, but no i do not want to buy your book on dream symbolism that is regurgitated new age idealogy. no i do not want your protein supplements that promise to help me lucid dream. no i do not believe dreams are a method of precognition or other psychic abilities. there are so many arguements to break down why what youre doing is incurious and sometimes purposefully misleading.