By BARB LEVAND

Did you ever wake up after going to bed early and sleeping soundly feeling like you never slept at all? Or did you ever hear anyone say that they don't dream?

If you wake up feeling tired in the morning after a good night's sleep, you probably didn't dream since dreaming is essential to healthy sleep. Many experiments have been conducted that proved that dream deprivation over a long period of time can be a cause of mental illness.

Everybody dreams, but many people feel that they didn't dream because they can't remember their dreams. Those who can best remember their dreams often average the highest scores on creativity tests and are usually more conscious of their inner feelings and anxieties.

On the other hand, people who seldom remember their dreams tend to repress their inner feelings and are inclined to be emotionally inhibited. Most people remember the dreams they have either right before they wake up or right after they go to sleep.

In their dreams, many people hope to lead a more exciting and adventurous life. Others often hope to escape reality, but people are often brought face to face with reality in their dreams. Dreaming sorts out the important and unimportant daily experiences. The important experiences are dreamt over and over again so that they are impressed on the mind.

Dreams are just a continuation of daily life; they are not bizarre, unusual, exciting, or adventurous.

Through dreaming, many people have found solutions to certain problems. Dreams can often work as a creative function to link ideas into new combinations. Some people feel that while asleep, their mind is resting.

This is not true, however, because the mind is constantly working. Your mind is going over your experiences of the day and sorting out the experiences which are most important to you.