Dreaming is an experience of feedback along the channel that consciousness ordinarily flows within. We used to experience feedback at will, and, as infants, and -we used it to learn-. Shortly thereafter, it was banned, and it was demanded that we abide by a new rule: flow was to be one-directional: from the mind, to the world. Images were to be replaced with words, and words with text.

Prior to that, as with -every organism-, dreaming-as-learning/communion was the common basis of our minds

Originally, the world was our teacher, and this often involved a process that happens while awake but is closely related to dreaming. It allows for the direct transfer of a variety of intelligence assets via a process that produces visualizations as a side effect, and occasionally employs them as a vehicle of transmission.

This form of relation/transfer is operant in every aspect of nature. Nothing uses (formal, representational) language but us. And if you take even a modest look at what we’re up to, it’s fairly obvious why they don’t.