What are dreams and why do we have them? No, I’m not talking about adolescent moist ones, or adult, force-conjured reveries involving threesomes with Scarlett Johansson and Kate Beckinsale. I’m talking about the trippy, looped-logic things with melting clocks, set in a country to which you have never traveled, and involving your boss, your mom, a for-some-reason extremely important game of flag football, and that kid from fourth grade that you had all but forgotten about. What gives there?

OK, needless to say there isn’t some neat, pat answer. (Part of it is that you’re probably weird, and another part may be your roommate’s propensity for spiking the guacamole dip with mescaline.) Still, this hour-long Nova title focuses on a group of leading dream researchers as they embark on a variety of
neurological and psychological experiments to investigate the hidden world of
sleep and dreams. It’s interesting, heady stuff, delving deep into the thoughts and brains of a variety
of dreamers. The range of compressed information and sleep-related phenomena here is impressive, from
human narcoleptics and sleepwalking cats to those who can’t seem to dream at all. (Short answer: we all do, whether or not we tend to remember them.) The phenomenon of recurring
nightmares also get some inquiry and investigation (my most notable one of these as a kid involved killer Eskimos trying to disembowel me, which informs my aversion to this day to Inuit door-to-door knives salesmen), as does the subconscious mind’s ability to camouflage but still play out traumas that we try to bury. Fascinating stuff, all the way around.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, What Are Dreams? comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, with a simple English language stereo track, and no bonus features. To order a copy, phone (800) PLAY-PBS or click here; to purchase the DVD via Amazon, meanwhile, click here. B+ (Movie) D (Disc)