I don't think dreams are just meaningless and have no real impact on us. There is something in them we may not know for 100% sure what they are there for or the reasons but aknowledging them as important I think is an important step.
One thing that interests me is lucid dreaming and through it you get the opportunity to become conscious and aware you are dreaming. Then you can actually ask in the dream what certain dream figures, scenarios, experiences represent. Often they will come back and describe what this means in your life.
Now I would like to be able to lucid dream regularly as this seems a very helpful thing to do physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. If you have never looked into lucid dreaming then I suggest two people to research on YouTube would be Robert Waggoner and Charlie Morley. They are both very experienced lucid dream teachers and may set your life off in a whole new direction! :)