I've always been a very vivid dreamer and it's a very important part of my life. I think it's another part of my brain thinking.
Sometimes it's just total nonsense, of course. But most of the time the dreams that I remember revolve around things that are very relevant to my life. A lot of times it's in symbols... not like buy-a-dream-dictionary symbols but rather symbols that make sense only to me, my own internal language (Jung had theories on this). E.g., if I were to dream about an earthquake, that means something very specific to me based on all the things I know and think about earthquakes.
Anyway, I find those dreams to be really, really helpful to me. They often show me things that I'm thinking or feeling or fearing under the surface. Not just the situations that I dream, but how I feel about them in the dream, tell me a lot. I often wake up thinking, "Oh my god, that's right, I really do feel concern/happiness/uncertainty about that thing."
I have two people that I'm very close with who never remember their dreams. I can't imagine what that must be like. It's the other half of my life!