What is the nature of dreams?

Dreams are incredibly mysterious and I often find myself pondering the nature of them.<br><br>Since we don't remember how our brains work at birth, it doesn't appear possible to actually figure out how our brains work, but we can brainstorm possible ways in which dreams could work.<br><br>The only "empirical" evidence I have is that I've had multiple dreams that I'm positive had been inspired by different memories that seemed unrelated, and on multiple occasions I've had dreams where I've been in situations that have actually happened or close to situations I've been in before. This leads me to brainstorm that one can only dream about things that they've already experienced.<br><br>I also find the concept of dreams to be quite odd. If the brain is simply "re-wiring" itself, could we even say that we actually dream?<br><br>If the brain is only just re-wiring, then dreams are actually inconsequential. Or are they? Maybe they're just random firings of neurons, but do they have any actual point?<br><br>Given our consciousness resides in our brain, then who is experiencing the dreams? Even if we say that the re-wiring brain is the entity who is experiencing the dream, then that's no difference from when we're awake and the brain is also conscious. So we can't be the person having the dream. So who is?