Dreams - A Display Of The Subconscious Or Something More?

[Asheekay]

The exact age when vivid/memorable dreams begin is not known with certainty, but most individual accounts state it at sometime close to 7 years. As we progress, our dreams gradually get more complex, possibly hinting at the complexity of the experiences we go through. This is probably also related to our psychological states. We tend to have distressing dreams when we are scared, ecstatic dreams when we achieve a success in something and weird/outworldly dreams when we undergo some new type of physical or emotional experience than our regular daily grind, although this is no hard and fast rule, and many exceptions exist.

Interestingly, despite the vast advancement in the field of psychology, there is so far no way to learn what an individual would dream, even if we know all about the personality and experiences of the individual. It is also not known definitely what is the role of dreams in maintaining our mental health and what would happen if an individual is stripped of the ability to dream.

But that is not all. There is something more interesting about dreams. There are dreams which all adults go through (peaking to sexual climax etc), those which are fairly common (snakes, large bodies of water, falling from a height etc) and some which are very uncommon.

Dreams have played an important role in the human history. Kings have had dream interpretters in their courts and there were (and are) people from almost all religions and cultures who claim to be able to predict the future events of a person on the basis of their dreams. This is not the propaganda of this topic and the writer, however, as I seek to learn what type of dreams fellow members tend to have, and what do they think about them, instead of pushing my individual point of view about them.

So, kindly state your latest and recurring dreams and state how you look at them, and dreams in general. This would help me learn whether dreams can hint to a future event or the personality of the viewer.

[D3matt]

Hello, Freud.

I have no recurring dreams (as least that I remember after waking). Does that mean I have no future?

[Adrian Ţepeş]

You should also look at my Lucid Dreaming thread, I think they touched on some of this stuff.

Also:

An Online Guide To Dream Interpretation

[Mr. Matt]

Dreams may 'attempt' to predict the future, but they can't actually show you the future. If they could I'd be a multi-billionnaire with a Nobel prize and a hundred supermodels living in my enormous mansion.

I don't tend to dream. When I do, those dreams tend to be either so abstract as to mean nothing, or almost be story-like in nature. Some of them have narratives sufficiently complex that you could make them into viable movies, I swear.

I don't recall ever having a dream that I would say references something going on in my life, or could be used to help me understand my subconscious, beyond coming to the unsurprising conclusion that I'm completely batshit crazy. If I have, I don't remember it.

To be honest that's the most annoying thing about my dreams. Sometimes I've had a dream and I know it was nice, or entertaining in some way, and I wish I could remember them or experience them again, but within minutes of waking I've forgotten them. It's the same sort of sensation as trying to remember a word, and having it on the tip of your tongue, but just not being able to get it out.

[Adrian Ţepeş]

Hello, Freud.

I have no recurring dreams (as least that I remember after waking). Does that mean I have no future?

Originally Posted by Mr. Matt

Dreams may 'attempt' to predict the future, but they can't actually show you the future. If they could I'd be a multi-billionnaire with a Nobel prize and a hundred supermodels living in my enormous mansion.

If I remember correctly from my psychology class, I believe Sigmund Freud actually said that dreams don't really "mean anything" in the grand scheme of things.

[Asheekay]

Originally Posted by D3matt

Hello, Freud.

I have no recurring dreams (as least that I remember after waking). Does that mean I have no future?

Read sentence 3 and onwards of paragraph 4 of the original post and try to understand what it means.

My name is Asheekay btw. Thank you.

[Adrian Ţepeş]

Some of my recent dreams are listed here:

Lucid Dreaming

[Mr. Matt]

Originally Posted by Adrian Ţepeş

If I remember correctly from my psychology class, I believe Sigmund Freud actually said that dreams don't really "mean anything" in the grand scheme of things.

I thought Freud was a great proponent of the notion that dreams were like coded messages from the subconscious, and that his beliefs in this notion that dreams could infer secrets of the mind were later found to be supported by no empirical evidence.

[Adrian Ţepeş]

I don't really remember, but I think the general point was that dreams can be that, but you shouldn't think of them as something that you would necessarily change your life over, or even that they necessarily mean some epic secret. After all, Freud also said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

I do find dreams really fascinating and fun, but I probably wouldn't go out and throw all my money on lottery tickets because I dreamt I was a millionaire; however, on the other hand, it might inspire me to save, invest, and be resourceful with the money I make.

[Mr. Matt]

Originally Posted by Adrian Ţepeş

I don't really remember, but I think the general point was that dreams can be that, but you shouldn't think of them as something that you would necessarily change your life over, or even that they necessarily mean some epic secret. After all, Freud also said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Didn't that phrase come about because he was so renowned for drawing analogies from virtually everything, however innocuous?

Well, anyway, I expect that sometimes people have dreams relevant to what's going on in their lives, dreams that might relate to hopes and fears, but I agree with you that they might not necessarily be useful. And either way, I lack recollection of any such dream myself.

I still find most dreams entertaining on the occasion when I do have them though.