Our dreams may affect our lives more than we ever realized, says a new research. For 11 years, a 58-year-old anthropologist kept a journal of nearly 5,000 dreams. By analyzing color patterns in the dreams, Arizona-based re searcher Robert Hoss could accurately predict certain things about the man's emotional state. Hoss correctly identified two separate years when the man experienced crises in his life. How was Hoss able to gauge what the dreamer's experienced? 'The clues were in the colors,' he says. The anthropologist's dominant dream hues were reds and blacks, and blacks increased during difficult times. 'Even without knowing the events in his life,' Hoss observes, 'we accurately determined the emotional states based on those colors in his dreams.' Dreams are a way for the subconscious to communicate with the conscious mind. Dreaming of something you're worried about, researchers say, is the brain's way of helping you rehearse for a disaster in case it occurs. Dreaming of a challenge, like giving a presentation at work or playing sports, can enhance your performance. And cognitive scientists have discovered that dreams and the rapid eye movement that happens while you're dreaming are linked to our ability to learn and remember. Dreaming is a' mood regulatory system,' says Rosalind Cartwright, Ph.D. She's found that dreams help people work through the day's emotional quandaries(因惑). 'It's like a built-in therapist(临床医学家),' says Cart Wright. While we sleep, dreams compare new emotional experience to old memories, creating patterns of old images laid on top of new ones. As she puts it, 'You wake up and think, what was Uncle Harry doing in my dream? I haven't seen him for 50 years. But the old and new images are emotionally related. 'It's the job of the conscious mind to figure out the relationship. In fact,dream emotions can help real therapists treat patients undergoing traumatic(创伤的) life events. In a new study of 30 recently divorced adults, Cartwright tracked their dreams over a five-month period, measuring their feelings toward their ex-spouses. She discovered that those who were angriest at the spouse while dreaming had the best chance of successfully coping with divorce. 'If they were bland in their dreams,' Cartwright says, 'they hadn't started to work through their emotions and deal with the divorce.' For therapists, this finding will help determine whether divorced men or women need counseling or have already dreamed their troubles away. What happens in your head at night is more important than you think. Although no device lets researchers probe the content of dreams while we sleep, scientists may interpret dreams once we've awakened. Which of the following statements is true according to the first paragraph?