Fetal Dreaming

"Dreams are the action or a play or the consequence of an evolving awareness of the environment in which a creature is growing..... We dream in order to become aware that we exist as a self, as an entity, as a being...... The dream is a laboratory of the self. It's the way in which an entity becomes defined to itself.... Dreams are vital for the formation of a self." 
Fred Alan Wolfe


"Researchers have discovered that fetal babies are dreaming as early as 23 weeks g.a. when rapid eye movement sleep is first observed. Studies of premature babies have revealed intense dreaming activity, occupying 100% of sleep time at 30 weeks g.a. Dreaming is a vigorous activity involving apparently coherent movements of the face and extremities in synchrony with the dream itself, manifested in markedly pleasant or unpleasant expressions. Dreaming is also an endogenous activity, neither reactive or evoked, expressing inner mental or emotional conditions. Observers say babies behave like adults do when they are dreaming."  

David B. Chamberlain


To EBR, REM sleep is the essential factor in the development of the central nervous system in utero.
Papers
Carl Anderson's Fractal Fetal REM Studies
Fractual Nature of Active Sleep
Dreaming and the Self-Organizing Brain
Baby's First Dreams
Remembering REM
Fetal Dream Study - B Bartholomew 
EM Activity Between 24-39 weeks gestation

Research Links
Wikipedia - REM Sleep
REM between 24 - 39 wks Gestation
Ontogeny ...CNS, Fetal REM, Waking State
REM Sleep and Neuronal Development
Importance of fetal/neonatal REM sleep
The function of fetal/neonatal rapid eye movement sleep

REM sleep...and the development of reproductive strategies
Dev of fetal and neonatal sleep and circadian rythyms
Perchance to Dream
Functions of paradoxical sleep and ontogenesis
Encounter with Michel Jouvet