Dreams

Shani says:
"I say dreams are a mechanism of the mind to test any changes it makes to the model of the world (in our head), while we sleep.Say i watch a documentary on snakes. I already have a section on snakes in my head (part of the model of the world around me) that has all the 'relevant' information i have collected on snakes so far. Owing to what happend during the day, while i lay in bed and sleep, my mind goes to work to extract the new data (or extent of emphasis on old data/rules), and then wants to suppliment the old notion of snakes with the new data ... as it does that it needs to verify whether that change is good, i.e. wouldn't lead to me say getting bit by a snake cuz i stepped on it. So to verify, the mind creates a drama and lets my updated model react to it, i might see myself in a jungle and then a snake and the mind carefully monitors my reaction to it ... if everythign goes smooth, good, if not then maybe the changes weren't quite right ... "

I say:
"I think there is the biological and then there is the psychological function of dreams. It is not clear whether the dreams play a homeostatic role in our lives, meaning that they create the balance, re orient us and bring us to the center of our biological or our psychological lives.

I think you are right about dream being the censor for the change that occurs in our minds. I would though want to extend it by saying that introducing snake as a data in the mind means introducing various things in the mind. I would liken it to the mind going over the translation of the world that it did in the day time. I would think that is what you mean by going over the data.
The translation though would be a tricky thing because that would mean what is the data that the mind sees.
If I were wearing red spectacles I would interpret all data about colors as various shades of red. So it is interesting how the mind interprets the new data. In gross terms new data is interpreted, associated and then stored.
In the example of the snake. You dreamed about the snake. Your interpretation of the snake, i would think is a very biological phenomenon which involves integration of the lines and the colors and then naming it by comparing it to past experiences. The comparing part starts to spill over in to the psychological realm. Now when you compare it, the emotional significance of the snake will be brought forth. Freud felt that unconscious mind or the dreaming mind is involved with primary thinking. Thinking that would use primitive patterns of reaching conclusions. (See level I and level II defences). There are some bizarre explanations for a snake incidentally. Snake has been interpreted as a phallic symbol and the explanation is that the mind while associating it might recall a similar emotion (the one that the person might have felt on seeing a snake) associated with a similar form. Ofcourse there is a lot of "static" also going on in terms of defences and the resulting situation is bizarre dreams which need to be interpreted.