Malachite> of course you know I would reply yes
Actually... now that you mention it, dreams must have some important function, or else why would we have evolved to have dreams? Nature does some kooky and often redundant things with design, but it's usually there for a reason. I read something about platypuses - b/c of they are monotremes exhibiting mammalian and reptilian traits, they shed light on the development of dreaming... So it's like... the evolution of the ability to dream is maybe related to consciousness or something...
The article I was talking about is here - it's pretty interesting:
http://www.exn.ca/Stories/1999/08/16/52.asp