Dreams are funny things. No one really knows exactly why they happen, what purposes they serve, etc. And how could they? There's the Activation Synthesis theory, the Junk Removal theory, evolutionary theories, and many more. That Freud guy also fixated on dreams a little. Now, I like aspects of a lot of the theories; most have reasonable and valid points and explanations. As much as I, like the majority of the psychology world, disregard much of what Freud postulated, I believer there are revealing aspects to dreams.
I tend to have three types of memorable dreams: ones that are really strange/funny, ones that are really cinematic that I think I could win an Oscar off of, and ones that hold some (perceived) real-life significance and implications. Now I'm not one to romanticize things and sentimentalize, but I do get dreams occasionally that are directly related to the waking world. Many times it's not so much events that are "revealed" to me, it's more about emotions. I've had dreams that conjure up feelings that I know I will feel at some point, or maybe even that I've already felt. When I have those, I try to learn from it, to prepare myself for whatever may come. So dreams can be useful (at least to me). If not, they can make a really great story.
I try to live my life rationally. I try as hard as I can to look at things from an objective standpoint, one that isn't swayed by pathetic (as in the Greek "pathos") appeals, one that isn't swayed by demagoguery and emotion. I feel like my attention to dreams takes away from that in a sense, which gives me pause. Should I take these dreams as seriously as I do? Should I let them affect me as much as they do? I like to think that my mind works when I'm asleep, that my lack of an ego can replace cognitive dissonance with intellectual honesty, can help me more objectively reveal my psyche. The downside is that that could be absolutely false and my mind just creates random shit for me to see. I'd like to study this more. Perchance I've stumbled upon a career?
I have most commonly found that my dreams reveal whatever is on my mind, but not necessarily what is most important. When I used to play video games, my dreams would often mimic the content of a video game that I had just played for 6 hours before going to bed. As far as I can remember, a person can't show up in my dreams unless I have seen or thought about the person recently, but I can't be certain.
ReplyDeleteI used to keep dream journals at different times in my life. I think that is the only way to really get to the bottom of things. You have to write down every dream you have because naturally some will be more memorable than others and they can skew an attempt to figure out the logic behind one's dreams.