We are grateful to Martin Dresler (this collection) for his thorough and insightful commentary on our target article (Revonsuo et al. this collection). Dresler's commentary places the proposed simulation functions of dreaming into the wider context of other functions for sleep and dreaming, demonstrating that these phenomena may have multiple different and partly overlapping functions. He also suggests the threat simulation and social simulation functions are unique. They can neatly be connected to evolutionary theory and only they explain why the suppression of reality testing and the lack of lucidity are necessary features of these simulation functions of dreaming (i.e., they require an “oblivious avatar”). While we agree with many of the points presented in Dresler's analysis, we believe that it is possible to regard the different proposed functions of dreaming as representing different (preliminary) scientific theories of dreaming. When viewed from this theory-driven perspective, it is also possible to present more definitive evaluations as to which of them are more plausible theoretical explanations than others.