Um, psychoanalysis anyone? How could the premier venue for thinking usefully about dreams merit not even a mention here? It’s true that psychoanalytic perspectives are usually hopelessly mangled in the process of summarizing them, but why completely reinvent the wheel in this primitive way when there is a whole articulated richness available to us?
15
You didn’t mention snake dreams which I still have periodically after 67 yrs old. I don’t believe they have a sexual component as some say but think it’s more likely it’s more of a symbol of powerlessness like an attack by an animal/predator.
4
An entire article on dreams without a single mention of Freud? I must be dreaming.
44
Oh dear. 117 years after Freud's INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS, we still have to argue about this? Okay, she's added an evolutionary twist to the TRAUMDEUTUNG, but not much else.
Please. This is old news.
17
What a distressingly ignorant column this proves to be!
One-or at least the present writer -would assume anyone tackling dreams would at the very least have taken cognisance of the vast domain of dream studies generated in the domain of psychoanalysis.
Instead we are fed the ill-digested quasi-scientific nonsense of evolutionary psychologists whose speculations skip over the ground-breaking insights of the Freudian circle in terms of actual external threats and the psychological angst of failing to be capable of becoming doctors.
Let Ms Robb educate herself in the basis of oneirism before sounding off on theories so unfounded.
Or is science now fake news?
21
Hmmm... I remember seeing Homer Simpson have this dream, only to have the guy next to him pinch him to prove he was awake and really had gone to school without his pants.
13
“Even in dreams, we know who we are.”
You think?!?
Dig deeper, dear, you’re barely scratching the surface.
12
I can’t understand why the Times would run this piece. It teaches almost nothing most of us don’t already know, and it is misleading in many ways. Although Freud was wrong about many things, his basic description of how dreams work—through condensation and displacement—is much more to the point than anything in this piece. It’s really just self-indulgent pseudo-science.
24
I've been retired from a stressful corporate job for 11 years but still dream about that workplace frequently. Often before fully waking or getting out of bed the thought comes to me, Hey doofus, you are retired and don't have to worry about that any more. It's like a big relief. Same with those college dreams where I've haven't gone to class all semester. Hey Doofus, you got your Masters degree in 1994. But naturally it's the sex dreams with unlikely people that can be sweetest and most disturbing.
12
What was this all about?
11
I am astonished that in neither the original article nor in the Times Pick comments is there any mention of Freud, whose theory of dreaming anticipates and is perfectly consistent with the plain vanilla version given here.
16
Nicole Hollander cartoon. Frame 1: A fairy touches Sylvia's head with a wand, saying, may all your dreams come true. Frame 2: Sylvia is sitting naked at a desk with an algebra exam.
14
I still laugh at one version of my exam dream. In elementary school we had a small chapter of new spelling words each week. In my dream, the test (given Fridays) is about to start and I realize I haven’t even looked at the chapter and am totally unprepared. I told myself it would be ok. I’m good at spelling and can wing it. But no I’m told, this is the chapter in which all the words defy the rules of the English language.
6
It's not really science if you can't probe them via experimentation and receive a certain and repeatable response. That is not to say that some interpretations are not perhaps plausible, but there is no certainty. You don't necessarily have to understand everything.
I have many outstanding and memorable dreams. Mostly I enjoy them, other times they make me angry. I can sometimes know that I am dreaming when I am in the dream. I can sometimes fly and other times I have faced down the devil, turning him into a clown. Psychedelic dreams of no form but feeling and ability to alter the feeling. I don't need to understand.
I had an experience when I was taking physics when I went to the wrong final. I went to the second year final, and it didn't seem strange, since many of the students were familiar to me (they were in my calculus class). I thought when I started the test that I must have been dreaming because I didn't know what any of the test questions were about. I left and checked the test schedule and my physics final was the next day at the same time in the same room. I was one day early.
6
I dream with what's on my mind when I go to bed. Nothing good. So, now, instead I do not think of negative, but positive things. It may be working. My dreams seem to be a bit lighter. We'll see.
6
Bad dreams don't prepare you for life situations any more than a sprained ankle prepares you for life situations. They're both signs of distress or injury -- psychological in one case and physical in the other. As one resolves whatever psychological conflicts one is struggling with, as one more fully integrates unconscious feelings with conscious behavior, dreams become less awful and less threatening. As for comparing the number of bad dreams modern humans have with early humans, we have no way of knowing that they had as many bad dreams as we do. This is an unfounded assumption made by the scientists referenced in the article. In fact, we live very different lives than our ancestors did, and we may not be behaving in ways that are in accord with what our bodies desire, at all. If human beings were meant to live the lifestyles of hunter-gatherers, for instance, it stands to reason that we are much unhappier than our ancestors were; naturally we'd have much more unconscious misery to contend with, then.
3
I dreamt that I would read a newspaper article about the meaning of dreams. Must have been in my parallel universe.
5
Which reminds me of Descartes' dream argument: because as we dream we take them to be real, how do we know that they are different from all else we take to be real?
There is no test to prove we are awake.
1
Dreaming is the most arcane and mysterious of all our activities… It is a fascinating field, where everyone has a chance to become a poet, an artist, whatever one might want to be… Personally, the most vivid, intense situations in my life, by far, took place in dreams… Today, people interested in dreaming can be separated into two groups: those that believe that the dreams are an elaboration of material collected during our present lifetime, and an exclusive product of such activities, and those that believe that dreams are a gate to higher dimensions, to which we usually cannot access because of the strong specialization of physical senses, which are so important for survival, blocking our ability to contact other forms of existence… If dreams are related to other forms of existence, then it is not surprising that they are so difficult to analyze, measure and disentangle meaning using standard scientific instruments. In any case, they are a very important part of our daily life; we devote a good part of our lives to sleeping, and while sleeping, to dreaming… The study of dreams is a discipline in which every one of us is the subject and the investigator; in order to know, the only thing you need is willingness to know… Some researchers have created what is presently called oneironautics, the science – or perhaps art – of surfing in the realm of dreams… To those interested, I strongly recommend reading Stephen LaBerge books… Extremely sound, absolutely fascinating texts…
4
Don’t forget, the terrors we face in our dreams have a cultural component...
A German who works as a teacher told me about a recent nightmare she had:
-I was standing in front of my class and something was terribly wrong.
-Did you lose a tooth? Were you naked?
-Why would being naked in front of my class bother me? No, what I realized was that I had arrived for class terribly, terribly late.
7
Hello - Freud! Give the man his due.
11
How can you write about dreams and not mention Freud? How absolutely odd!
9
it is interesting and fun (sometimes) to remember your dreams but not essential. The dream is comparable to a garden service to mow your lawn and prune your bushes. No need to be at home then. When you wake up though (back at home) you feel a change in your perspective, new opinions, and time to move forward. The brain is always busy even when you're not.
4
I dream I'm still in HS blindsided by exams I was supposed to study for. Then my teeth fall out. And I'm naked. My brain pretty much hates me.
10
When I was much younger and spending a lot of my time downhill skiing, I would dream about what my form should look like and these dreams really improved my skiing. I wonder if my body was moving as if skiing while I slept.
3
As a follower of Jungian dream interpretation, I have two points to make. First, never make literal interpretation of dreams. They are symbols for something deeper. If you didn't wear pants to your exams, it has nothing to do with clothing, but everything to do with with exposing who you are perhaps your sense of inadequacy. Second, fear in dreams is a way of your unconscious to warn and guide you about potential bad decisions or more seriously what Jung and Freud called complexes that require corrective action. The irony is that what seems seems negative, often frightening, is in reality an attempt by your unconscious to save you from making a bad decision in real-life. In my own Jungian encounters with dreams I have found them to be extremely healing.
12
Dreams are fascinating and most certainly useful, but I wonder whether the fact we remember (or analyse) them plays any role. Maybe remembering them is just an accident, in the same way that starting to effectively move your arm in your sleep while you are dreaming of moving your arm is just a mishap (normally brain chemicals are supposed to paralyse the voluntary muscles during REM to avoid this). Could it be that remembering your dreams is a similar mishap? Could it be that you have many more dreams than you ever remember. How could science know, if dreaming is a conscious activity (and activity that you need to consciously report while REM can be scientifically observed). The fact that remembering your dreams if you are awaken in the middle of them is higher would seem to point that way. Could it be that dreaming is actually just our conscience (whatever that means) trying to make sense of brain activities taking place during our sleep and that were supposed to be unconscious (which would explain why dreams often make little sense)?
Ask anyone who has waited tables, we all have had the same dream, too many tables, slow food from kitchen, can't clear fast enough, crazy special/allergy orders, too chatty guests...
My stress nightmare is not being fast enough to cut and box pizza out of Pizza Huts conveyor oven, they fall out or back-up and burn. And I did that job 19 years ago.
2
Have you ever read Sigmund Freud’s “Interpretation of Dreams”?It is a masterpiece. I correlate his ideas of Cathexis with the neuro-biological layering of the hippocampus and possible consolidation of long term memory.
6
Has Ms. Robb imagined Freud on her own without actually having read him? Even in so short a piece of this it would be reasonable to acknowledge Freud's work on the interpretation of dreams.
9
In the Western tradition, there is a rich and wonderful psychoanalytic literature on dreams going back to Freud, enhanced by over 120 years of psychoanalytic research. Dreams are indeed a window to our soul, our conflicts and our hopes. In psychoanalysis, dreams are not the objects of pat interpretations as people often imagine, but a creative, timeless unconscious window that, with the help of a competent analyst, can help us understand and claim ourselves and life experience.
7
I've often had a dream where I'm back in high school, having discovered that I somehow missed completing one or two classes and didn't graduate. Other bad dreams often revolve around having missed or forgotten something critical. Anxiety never sleeps!
10
@Helene: for many years after graduating high school...I'd have a nightmare in early September that I had forgotten THIRTEENTH grade somehow....failed to buy school supplies and show up on time at my old high school!
The author wrote:
"In the dream, I had agreed to a second date, and I had brought along two friends to observe our interactions and help me assess him. At the end of the group outing, my friends pulled me away and offered a unanimous decision: He wasn’t for me."
I would say that the lucky one was her date. Anyone who would let friends decide whether someone was right for them is someone that no one should get involved with.
9
@Errol: also very superficial! since the friends would be judging mostly on physical aspects!
Imagine if a man had written this: "I went on one date with a woman....didn't quite think her attractive enough, so I asked two friends to observe her and see if she was GOOD ENOUGH for me to date...."
2
So much navel gazing. Usually if I had a dream that I was walking around the cities streets without shoes in the cold it was because the person sleeping next to me is hogging the blanket again. Or after I gave up cigarettes I would dream I just started smoking again but had will power to only smoke 2 or 3 a day. That went on for 20 years but not often.
Boring huh?
2
Regarding stage fright: Before I speak before a group, I do not know, I finally came up with a method. It is this: I write out what I am going to say. I read, and I reread it. Then....... I do the last rehearsal in the nude in front of a full length mirror while looking up at my reflection in the mirror now and then while I am rehearsing. Once before the actual group, I find myself remembering that rehearsal.
1
So, because the author concocted two friends in her head who confirmed her own opinion that a man she dated wasn't "the one," this somehow made her decision to forego a second date somehow correct? Honestly, I couldn't buy into anything else the article had to say because of that very silly anecdote. And the author's contention that we're constantly told to ignore our dreams just seems flat-out wrong - if anything, we're constantly told that dreams are more meaningful than they probably are. Just listen to anyone re-telling the dream he or she had last night, as if it contained the mysteries of the universe. Is there anything more tedious? Dreams are great fun - I love having them and remembering them, and actually try to "invite" lost loved ones to visit me before I doze off - but listening to someone else go on and on about the one they had last night? The author's monthly visits with dream-telling friends sounds like my idea of a nightmare. Wake me up.
13
Remember, your subconscious self wrote, casted and directed a movie called a dream. It is a movie filled with images that your conscious mind might find too painful or uncomfortable to be thinking about.
Writing them off as “just a dream” is a mistake. They can be incredibly useful as understanding one’s self for those willing to do some interpretive work.
3
Could dreams be affected externally via radio signals? A Times
article dated September 1 contains linked-to material that suggests
the answer is yes (it's here: https://tinyurl.com/ycocvy5m ).
The foreground story (about weaponized diplomatic intrigue) is, in
effect, just a McGuffin into a more intriguing topic. If anybody
ever developed technology to whisper to sleeping brains from the
research cited in the Times story (the latest of which dates from
2003) they haven't published anything about it.
1
Last week I dreamed I was a bee that was regrowing my head, when my head was about half-grown I got married to a man.
So, if I know who I am, then am I a bee?
Might it be that one of the functions of dreams is to refresh and thus keep a haphazard/distorted collection of "picture-like" memories, "spiced" with emotions?
"You only live twice or so it seems.
One life for yourself and one for your dreams."*
The recurring dream about showing up at school without your pants or in your pajamas seems to reflect our dual identities of public and private. It's a reminder about how dangerous it is to reveal your private self in a public setting. I think we minimize the challenges of "fitting in." It is a lifelong learning process and one full of peril. How many times have our parents reminded us: "Don't forget who you are or where you came from." They're talking about the public us.
*Read more: Nancy Sinatra - You Only Live Twice Lyrics | MetroLyrics
1
I am a retired psychiatrist who, when I had my practice, always focused on the dreams that my patients offered up. Contrary to the idea that dreams are wish fulfillment, or to the notion that many only represented anxiety features, I felt that dreams often revealed what I termed "the state of the organism". They represented, in an interesting and often revealing way, what was important to the person at that moment, usually based upon very recent experiences needing to be stored in memory.
Like most other persons, I had repetitive "anxiety" dreams. Mine were usually that I was back in medical school and for some reason had blown off attending a particular hospital rotation -- and no-one in the dream ever noticed. The dreams felt quite real. What was most interesting to me was that when I retired, these dreams, which had been happened every month or two, totally stopped. My interpretation was that my daily preparation for meeting with patients, especially those who were the most difficult or complex, required that I always be very alert and on my toes, and as expected, at times I feared I might not be as prepared as I would have hoped.
While this may sound merely like anxiety, my waking emotion as I prepared to see my patients was usually one instead of anticipation, even excitement. Nonetheless, my dreams showed me how important this was to me, and how strongly I valued my preparation and care for those who I treated. It was salutary.
5
Dreams are much more easily interpreted when you recognize that they speak in the language of symbols. During a time of change at work, I once dreamed I was given a lovely little cottage by a lake, but it had no back stairs and it was a four foot jump, which I was reluctant to make. In the dream I said to myself,"I'll just have to get some of those concrete blocks so I can have concrete steps." Not hard to interpret.
3
I have no doubt that dreams "saved" me - through analysis with a wonderful therapist, I had the "eureka" breakthroughs I know I never would have had otherwise...to this day, many years later, I am always aware of my dreams and never dismiss them as meaningless....there is often a priceless "nugget" within that opens my eyes....
8
Reality is not all it is cracked up to be, especially if we minimize the value of our ability to dream, imagine, and wonder. Imagination changes the world. Wonder keeps us learning. And dreaming tells us that what some believe is impossible, is indeed possible. History is changed by such visionaries.
4
A while back as a senior undergraduate student I took a class on the psychology of dreams. It was taught by a psychoanalyst (a Berkeley graduate). The course was not very popular because it deviated from the behaviorist and empirical science hegemony that emerged in the 60s across psychology departments, and prevails until today (my research included). It was a fascinating class, and the textbook that we used was Freud’s book “the interpretation of dreams.” I have to say that this Freud's classic from 1901 conceptualized many concepts in this NYT piece; I am pretty flabbergasted that Freud is not accredited for the ideas that are mentioned in this column.
17
It also seems that dreams are also a way to edit our memory. Some research suggests that memories are stored as protein chains and that recalling them invokes a mechanism of writing new protein chains and discarding the originals. How many of your fondest memories are romanticised edits ?
2
I have dreams that revolve around three major themes: the first is getting lost or disoriented in a convoluted building or complex that reminds me of my university. Another theme is being together again with former partners or love interests, and these dreams can be pleasant or very upsetting. The final theme involves my former work, where I am now relegated to a subordinate position and guiltily amazed that no one has noticed I no longer should be there much less still being paid. A final category is dreams involving contact with deceased loved ones. Oftentimes these feel more like a visitation than a dream.
6
@Kate. I have had similar work dreams. Sometimes I have been fired but keep showing up and keep getting paid through bureaucratic oversight.
2
From early childhood my mother, always asked us about our dreams at breakfast and we discussed them. This helped us with dream recall. Her great grandmother was part Native American. I've often thought that might be the source of her/our interest in relating to our dreams
Carl Jung wrote a book on dreams. The collective unconscious is a vast store house human experience & spiritual guidance. He said - stream of consciousness thinking - is the best way to analyze our dreams. How did you feel in your dream? How do did the people/objects/images of the dream relate to your present (and past) life to access the direct or symbolic content of the dream. What did object X make you think of or feel? Usually your first association is pretty accurate.
I am in new situations most of the time in my dreams, often am helping others or doing some kind of problem solving. In one dream I was teaching people how to fly. I dreamed of the images of Sept 11 two days before it happened (scariest dream ever!). Have had prescient dreams regarding situations in my life like moving jobs, etc. My mother lay dying of a stoke and I stayed in the room with her. I prayed to Spirit to see her one more time - alive. She enough my dream was "granted" that night and we had a happy, homey time.
Many artist and scientists have gotten answers or inspiration in their dreams.
People need to appreciate and enjoy their dreams (if they can)
Dreams are a powerful storehouse of awareness, wonder and wisdom...
11
I wonder if there is any research on the difference between the jumbled dreams one has when dropping off to sleep, more 'managed' dreams when one is waking up (rewriting scenes), and anything that happens in between. I think there is a difference, and if I am right we can't talk about dreams as a single phenomenon.
6
As someone who has been seeing a Jungian Psychologist for 15 years I hope that Ms. Robb's book contains more insight into our human phenomenon of Dreaming than was presented in this article.
8
I am surprised there is no mention of Freud in this article. If I am not wrong, he was the first to talk of the importance of dreams as a window into the subconscious. He also posited that the relief we feel on waking from an anxiety dream was, in part, a reason the dream/nightmare. (Just as stated in this article).
6
Is anyone looking into how the food we eat and the conditions we are in contribute to the nature of our dreams? I reliably have the weirdest, long narrative dreams after eating foods high in preservatives, when I'm dehydrated or when I'm at high altitude. Sometimes all three. I had a weird dream last night - every time I pushed the button on my phone it became a different model, brand, or had a different visual appearance. Sometimes it didn't belong to me. Basically I couldn't find the information I was looking for because my phone kept changing. (Hahaha! The anxieties of our contemporary world). When I woke up this morning I tracked back to what I had eaten last night to try to figure out where the preservatives were. I suspect something in the sushi!
1
Fascinating. The night before I took the California Bar Exam, I dreamt that I was dancing with my father - who had died 3 months before. We had never danced together in real life.
I don't know where that came from, but it is a warm memory that I still recall clearly, nearly 35 years later.
5
Years ago, I had my version of the exam dream. First, I note that I have two post graduate degrees earned years ago.
In this dream, I go to a high school reunion. I am enjoying myself when one of my old teachers, now in his 90s, comes up to me with a package of papers. He tells me that the high school has been computerizing its old student records, and in doing so, there is no record of me taking the exam in a required course. And without a passing exam, I technically am not a high school graduate. The papers he has is an exam. He leads me off to a separate small room where I am to take the exam. I try to focus on the paper, but I cannot read the words on the page. After a while, he comes back to ask me how I am doing.
I generally don't like going to reunions. This dream added one more reason to skip them.
My more recurring dream involves trying to get from one place to another, either by motorcycle (I rode for 200,000 miles) or on foot. I am either encountering intersections where I am not sure where to turn, or if on foot, am trying to get through endless transportation terminals and passageways with all sorts of delays. The funny thing is, I really enjoy travelling. I understand these dreams to be a manifestation of frustration of getting things accomplished, often due to external factors.
3
My fellow public librarians and I used to dream that people wouldn’t leave the library when we were trying to close. When I became a library manager, I dreamed that no one was there to open the library on time. It’s always something.
14
Wonderwhat the guy dreamt.
3
Anyone see, Waking Life?
As well as being a gifted writer, is Alice Robb from some place with the initials S.A., like South Africa? I ask this because she cited her dream which sounds to me like a guilty feeling that she had not written to her relatives and friends in S.A. in a while.
“I’m leaving the test center and realize I forgot to write any essays.”
Most dreams are speech sounds imbedded in dream visuals and sensations, which we unwittingly use when we report the dream. The images which lead her to say "essays" can equally be written "S.A's". They sound identical.
Every writer knows that the meaning of the words in any utterance depends completely on their context. Best to ignore the apparent dream story. It gives a false context. Put words on the "important" (i.e. most memorable) images and think of alternative meanings for these words using the true context, which is the things on your mind at the time.
See my blog for more:
https://dreamstheciphermethod.wordpress.com/2017/07/10/first-blog-post/
2
A long article about dreams that doesn't mention Freud at all?
7
Because they evoke emotions, people take dreams quite seriously. They either must mean something or, not necessarily mutually exclusively, they must serve some function. But neither is likely true. Executive brain control over a whole range of functions slackens when we are asleep, and when we are effectively paralysed during REM sleep, neural circuits are on a very long leash. Perception, emotions, memories some consolidated some not, can slosh around and they do. Most of us experience the capacity to partially wake and give direction and form to our dreams -- i.e. exert some executive function control over the proceedings. Meaning? Significance? Purpose? Unlikely.
3
It’s sad that so many well educated people have forgotten Freud and have to keep rediscovering his insights. Another comment described this column as rather concrete and shallow, and it is. Research keeps validating bits and pieces of Freud’s understanding of dreams; I suppose one of these days someone will come up with his method and present it as new. The basic process is to remember and free associate to the various elements of a dream to understand its emotional meaning for one’s life. It can help in truly coming to terms with oneself and finding peace. Contrary to popular prejudice, there are many psychoanalysts who can help.
6
I've had all the stereotypical dreams, plus really complicated dreams that felt like movies. Inadvertently found a cure for the naked in public dream...Once I had been to a nudist resort, I never had that one again.
4
Why would anyone think dreams are meaningless. Treating dreams as "dandruff" sloughed off by the brain! Why? Dreams are never definitive or conclusive, but often illuminate emotional tensions, conflict, and fear. All worth thinking about.
4
When I was a young teen, whenever I went to a party or school dance, I used to frequently half wake up in the middle of the night and think I was still at the event. The problem was that I was so embarrassed for my friends to see me in the hair curlers that I had put in before going to bed, that I often took them out and would find them on the floor the next morning. It would drive me crazy and I never met anyone else who had the same experience. Fortunately electric curlers finally put an end to the problem.
2
I've never had dreams about missing clothing, but for years had nightmares about being unable to find the correct university classroom.
Now, a question. I dream in black and white, or with minimal tinges of color. Is this common?
2
Why no mention of Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's dreams? And kissing someone who smokes cigarettes can never be pleasant.
3
I often dream of cities that I've never been to and that likely do not exist at all or not anymore in their current form - often Old New York, for example. But I have heard of people who visit a place for the first time and know exactly where everything is - they *swear* they have been there before in their dreams and now they recognize it. It's extremely eerie.
5
First, there are people who do not enter REM sleep (where dreams happen), either because of nature or because of a drug they are on. They are able to learn new things and function normally, so the notion that REM sleep is required to consolidate memory isn't true. Dreams often include what should be irrelevant elements. My guess is that there is a heightened level of activity (which corresponds with recent studies that the brain temp rises during REM) wherein physically nearby, but logical disconnected neurons, are firing as well. The part of the brain which makes sense of reality is attempting to weave these other signals into a comprehensive story. Recently it has been shown that the level of 'stress' contained in the Amygdala is reduced during REM sleep. That doesn't correlate with observations of individual who can't enter REM, but perhaps they have a different mechanism. Yes, REM sleep activates pathways that are emotionally important (related to Amygdala?) but how do we rule out the fact that emotionally relevant dreams are the ones we remember?
1
There is something about my dreams I've always wondered about. I have Attention Deficit Disorder, and I was diagnosed in the 1970s, well before it became fashionable (like being gluten intolerant). My dreams are often, though not always, chaotic. The plot can change dramatically from one moment to the next, and people and things can change completely. You said that it's rare for a person in a dream to become an inanimate object, but that is fairly common in my dreams. A friend might become a rolled-up carpet, to give but one example. In some cases I'm not really surprised by the change, and it others I'm pretty baffled. I remember one dream where a pair of cats had become two human dinner guests, and I was trying to figure out if I should serve them cat food or human food. Sometimes the plot can change completely more than once, and when I wake up it feels like I had two or three dreams, when I really had only one. I've always wondered if this had something to do with being ADD.
1
Odd how Ms. Robb seems to think dreams were discarded as meaningless until she discovered some recent scientific research that reclaims them as useful.
While Freud's Interpretation of Dreams has enjoyed a century of reconsideration, only a sad fad in biological reductionism discarded dream experience as silly puff. The extreme alternative has been expensive dream therapists in LA who charge big bucks for some mishmash of Jung, Joseph Campbell & exotic symbologies to attend to their 'clients.' Reciting mantras before bed to retain dream memories is a longstanding meditation practice.
For most of us, the key to making use of dreams (which Freud correctly observed 'condensed' meanings)is to acknowledge the feeling-tone of the dream and then our thoughts play with associations the dream stirs.
Ms. Robb may include more of the full history of dream investigators in her book, but this article shows both a rather concrete & shallow perspective.
6
"even city dwellers with little experience of the wilderness often dream about being attacked by dangerous animals"
This caught my eye, since I grew up and live in a rural area. I don't remember ever dreaming about being attacked by dangerous animals.
5
My constant dream when I was younger was a flying dream. most of my dreams are negative as this article explores but this dream was wonderful. I could control the flying. wish I still had it.
5
Dreams clearly provide an evolutionary advantage. If not, they’d be gone. Even functional eyes are lost after cave fish spend generations in the dark.
Mammals have been around for a hundred million years or more, and virtually all species have REM sleep. Sleep is universal and memories are known to be consolidated during sleep. Learning from experience is an essential survival tactic, and dreaming quite plausibly facilitates this process.
Exactly how dreams operate in our brains remains to be better understood, but science marches on.
9
I cannot play any instrument, barely read music, rarely listen to recordings, and never attend concerts. Yet I often wake from dreams in which my brain has composed incredibly complex and haunting orchestral pieces. I lie there a few moments, relishing them, sometimes humming along, as they fade.
How I long to capture them!
6
@MLChadwick I've had the exact same experience on more than a few occasions. I'm certain, as I'm dreaming, that I am actually composing something new, and I can actually remember the very complex tunes for a short while after I wake up. And they are not merely "remembered" songs from the radio. I can't explain it but am glad to hear someone else has experienced the same.
1
@MLChadwick: me too! how funny. And like you, I am absolutely sure the music and lyrics are brilliant and marvelous and yet I can't write them down or record them.
Interestingly, in real life...I am a talent-free piano lesson dropout, who could not even play a kazoo and can't sight read music to save my life.
Like many people, I am descended from a couple whose relationship was illicit, kept hidden, and obfuscated to family members who wondered. I never met either of the people in this couple, and their numerous children remained largely mum about their parents. Those of my generation have always had many, many questions, but dared not ask our parents, or others, questions -- the subject was taboo.
In 2012, online family trees helped me and a cousin put many of the pieces of our family together. We discovered that the man in the couple had another family. We found a person on Facebook with an address who was a descendant of the other family. We decided to send him a letter and let him know about our existence.
From opposite sides of the coast, we composed the letter. My cousin typed it up, printed it out, signed it, and sent it to me. I added my signature, and prepared to send it on to this individual.
But sometime in the weeks before I actually sent it, I had a nightmare. I dreamed that I was at a riverside picnic. On the other side of the river, our likely relative was standing near a picnic table with his own family. He glared across the river at me. I got the message -- he was defending his family from these unknown outsiders who dared to claim a relationship.
My cousin confided that she had also had a nightmare -- that her own family staged an intervention to prevent her from sending the letter.
We sent it anyway -- and got a lovely response. And that ended it.
4
How about this? I have had several pregnancies and in each have had dreams that my teeth fell out. There must be something to it because in my final pregnancy when I had no reason to believe I was pregnant, I woke up one morning after having the tooth dream and went to my local clinic for a pregnancy test (in those days you could not do it at home). The nurse asked me all the usual questions and insisted that I could not be pregnant but I insisted that they do the test anyway and my 40-year-old son is proof that dreams don't lie. I subsequently asked a dentist about this and was told that in some women pregnancy causes engorgement of the gums ,which is worse when lying down , and it was undoubtedly this sensation in my sleep which caused the dream. Curiously it never caused me to dream that I was pregnant.
SA
6
I used to have dreams in which there came a mortal threat. Somehow, I'd learned that if, in the moment before the fatal blow, the fall from the cliff, whatever the danger was, I closed my eyes in the dream, I would be awake and out of it when I opened them.
Except the last time. I was returning to my parked car, behind the place I was visiting, late, dark. As I reached it, a mugger approached, knife in hand. As he neared, I closed my eyes. When I opened them -- to my surprise -- I was still in the dream and, as the knife went into my torso, he said, "You knew better that to come around here at night!" I died. And awoke.
That was at least 20 years ago. It is still vivid in my memory.
7
Some years back, I was under great stress at work and at home. I would be late to bed and early to rise, with my eyes snapping open as if I hadn’t slept at all. I never dreamed, or at least not anything I could remember on waking.
Strangely, though, I began spending time with someone who talked about their dreams, and my own dreaming returned. I would repeat to myself, almost in amazement, “Each day my dreams more vivid grow”, and over the months they became in fact more vivid. Easier to talk about, maybe. The unconscious mind can be very practical sometimes.
Yet I also felt more rested, and even when the stress became worse, I was able to cope with it better. Not well, but better than I might have done before. To share a dream with someone is to share a vulnerability, and perhaps this helps us feel safe, in some small but useful way.
6
I figure dreams are just another problem solving mechanism we employ.
My recurring problem is that my spouse dreams up non-existent problems. I guess I need to sleep on it.
2
No mention here of the impact of chemicals--drugs--legal or otherwise. One of my worst life-threatening nightmares was after a prescribed dose of a psycho-active drug. No, I didn't take that drug again. But I remember that dream from years ago.
4
Examining dreams can lead to useful conclusions. Freud recommended the use of free association (simply allowing our train of thought to wander where it will) as a tool to tease still more information from the dream. He argued that one function of the dream was to preserve sleep. dreams of searching for a good place to pee only to find that the place is too public or the bathroom door is locked always amuse me when I awake. I suspect that my public peeing scenario has some additional meaning that I won't discuss here.
2
I agree dreams are important for human health.
That said, I absolutely despise listening to someone describe their dreams in detail. Not because the act is juvenile. Because I really don't want to enter that private space within someone else's mind. It's like playing a role in "Being John Malkovich." I'd really rather not know. By the same token, I'll tell you I had weird dreams last night. I'm not going into the details publicly though. Not your place to know. My space.
We actually had a joke about these things at an old job. We had to drive to a different job site everyday so we would play getting to know you games along the way. The game always started "Let's get to know each other a little better... but not too much better." In other words, there are some things you should just keep to yourself.
Fortunately, I don't remember my dreams often. They're off somewhere doing their thing. Defragging my mental processes. I don't need to self-reflect on my own mind's subliminal mental conclusions... which is nice. The dreams I tend to remember are the lucid ones. If you're unfamiliar with lucid dreaming, this is when you become aware that you're dreaming and play a participant role in the events that take place in your dream.
Lucid dreaming is bizarre and takes some getting used to. I normally wake myself up accidentally because I forget how to move in a dream while I'm simultaneously lying in bed. You don't normally forget the dream though. Anyway, you should try it.
38
@Andy - You're right, too much self indulgent detail is tedious.
12
Here's something . . .
I have recurrent dreams about really awful people in politics. Mean, narcissist people who are intentionally destroying the institutions that sustain our democratic experiment.
Then I wake up and feel terrible as I am reminded of the reality, which is worse than any nightmare.
9
@Barking Doggerel
I see dead people ... walking around in perpetual nightmares unable to wake from their faux reality.
The author of this "fun" piece forgot to include the reality of the nightmare of having PTSD. Dreamers are often repeatedly plagued by features incongruous with their waking reality.
5
Clothing my Nakedness and Curing a Nightmare
I used to dream that the newspaper had been left outside the front door; I was naked, but I slipped outside to retrieve it. The door shut and locked behind me. People appeared; I tried to hide behind bushes . . . .
I stopped having the dream when I started wearing pajamas.
2
In my opinion, modern science knows nothing about dreaming and theories of evolutionary biologists here are laughable.
Read Castaneda: The ancient Toltecs understood almost everything about dreamong....
2
"I wake with a sigh of relief — no matter how unprepared I feel for this meeting, at least I won’t turn up naked." I, too, have had many a "pants less" dream. Another recurring dream (actually, a nightmare) I used to have was climbing a ladder to a platform and falling off, but sometimes jumping. ugh
2
I suggest you read 'Memories, Dreams, Reflections', by Carl Jung.
8
I have PTSD so I always get violently murdered in my dreams. Neither the content nor waking up in the middle of the night screaming help my survival during the day.
10
Dreams of being naked in public are warnings and rehearsals for public humiliation. People fear embarrassment for good reason; it is a matter of survival. We are social creatures: If we are not respected by the community, we will not have access to its resources. Even if we do managed to scratch out a living, we would be much less likely to pass on our genes.
5
All I know is that when I awake from one of my dreams that I find strange and or funny and try to recount it to my wife, she usually responds - " it may have been ( funny, interesting, strange ) to you, but the way you're telling it, is ...boring"
2
"Frederick Snyder, a psychologist, concluded that “dreaming consciousness” was in fact “a remarkably faithful replica of waking life.”
And what does it mean if not?? I'm in unknown and somewhat fantastical environments in virtually all my dreams, often in some type of vehicle, driving up and down ridiculously inclined roads with huge vistas spread out ahead.
I can't remember ever just dreaming of being in or around my house interacting with neighbors, family or friends.
2
I am a college instructor and wrote my last exam a while ago. But the dreams of being late for my high school, college, Masters exams and Ph.D defense pop-up every now and then! Added to these are dreams of accidents (not bad ones, just rear enders) where for some reason I'm paralyzed and can't step on the brake. In real life, I do drive quite a bit for work! It is indeed relief when I manage to wake up that none of these events are real!
2
For folks who think dreams are “really” just the result of random neuronal activity:
I have had lucid dreams (dreams in which you’re aware you’re dreaming) from early childhood. Recently, I’ve been practicing a technique modified by Brian Aherne, which allows you to maintain awareness from waking to dreaming.
1. Relax deeply
2. Mindfully observe (without any attempt to control) spontaneously arising imagery
3. “Zoom” in on one of the images, noting details carefully.
This noting of details will (with sufficient practice) “pull” you into the dream, with full awareness you’re dreaming.
As you gain more experience with this process:
- your dreams will be more coherent
- you will find continuity of dream themes from one night to another
- you will find dream themes more directly related to the events of the next day
and, most important for the issue at hand, you will find a new intuitive sense emerging of the meaning of dreams. Rather than imposing some conceptual interpretation on the ‘random play of neurons,” the integral meaning of the dreamscape will be immediately evident.
Nuclear physicist Arthur Zajonc has written extensively about the interplay of intuition (not Kahneman’s “fast thinking”) and analysis in the development of scientific theories. studying the personal accounts of great artists, we find the same interplay throughout the arts as well.
It is, I believe, the lack of such integration that is at the heart of the polarization in the world today.
2
I dreamt that I could not sleep! I got up and walked around the house and found a TV that had been left on. But it wasn’t my house ... unless I own a beach house in Malibu that I don’t know about. Dreams are weird.
2
I am no different as far as often waking up from dreams that left me in a fearful state or uneasy and unsure why. I have had serial dreams in my lifetime where I picked up the story line the next night, in other words, trying to control my dream state as well as my fast awake state.
I have definitely had the undressed yet out in public dream more than once as well as the falling off the abyss dream, but the ones that unnerved me were the ones that almost seemed to be hallucinations and an amalgam of every bit of minutiae learned over my lifetime as well as what I learned to educate or sustain my existence.
Strange dreams that left me quoting A Christmas Carol and Scrooge when he was confronted with Marley's ghost: "You are a bit of uncooked potato, ….." when I woke up. As in maybe digestive problems can produce nightmarish dreams.
Of course I still prefer the dream state over the reality state of Trump still being president of a democracy he is trying to destroy single-handedly.
5
Sadly, the author makes no mention of precognitive dreaming. I had one such dream as my waking dream some 40 years ago. The events of the dream replayed later that day and I was able to avoid injury to three people by seeing the events unfold and reacting to them as the dream replayed itself. This is real and yes, I do have a degree in psychology and was amazed. I have the newspaper clipping with the photo of the aftermath of the car crash up on my wall.
5
Read the bible to see how the actions that formed the basis of Jewish and Christian faiths were revealed to people in dreams. History was changed as a result of those dreams.
3
I used to teach statistics and research design. I always told my students that if they didn’t learn anything else about the word “data,” I wanted them to know that it was not spelled “a-n-e-c-d-o-t-e.”
8
Knowing who we are consciously emotionally and mentally is a real mystery. We are an evolving collection of unique personal experiences and memories. We are more than our physical brains. And we are less than our dreams and imagination.
We are neither angels nor demons. We are biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit African primate apes who appeared 300, 000 years ago. And we are driven by our nature and nurture to crave fat, salt, sugar, habitat, water, sex and kin by any means necessary. Including conflict and cooperation.
4
I dreamed that my house along with a lifetime's worth of memories was going up in flames. I told myself that at least I still had my beloved NYTimes subscription. Surely, there would be reporters here to give me the latest news, including an updated death toll (not yesterday's). Surely, they would release news of these megafires for free as they did when the hurricanes struck Florida and other parts of the south. Surely, I could depend on an Op-Ed piece to rebuke Trump for his snarky and factually inaccurate tweet. And there would be room for readers' words of support (or blame) from other parts of the country. Alas! When I woke up this morning... I had to turn to other national papers for the news.
1
Interesting that the article makes absolutely no mention of Freud's theories about interpreting dreams. A hundred years ago his theories dominated psychology. I still think he was correct in interpreting male obsession about guns as being based in castration anxiety.
2
I don’t recall ever having a nightmare. Never had a dream where I was unprepared. Sometimes I solve a problem I’d faced the previous day.
My dreams are always pleasant. I went through a period where every night was a wonderful movie; I didn’t want to wake up. Then another phase where I was always flying or floating over things.
2
Before and during my pursuit of a master’s, I worked as a zookeeper. Now, nearly 40 years later, before the start of the semester, I have an anxiety dream. It consists of trying to finish cleaning cages so that I can either study for an exam or prepare a lecture which is looming later in the day. My progress is hampered by an animal escaping & having difficulty recapturing it or some problem with equipment. These dreams happen nightly once they start, until I start working on an upcoming semester’s syllabi, then they go away until the next semester.
7
I never dreamed about exams when I was actually at university; however, since the day I got my master's degree I have had recurrent dreams in which I discover I still have to finish several key courses to get my degree, and to my horror I realize I don't understand anything about the questions, and then I wake up and I realize I actually did take that "horrible" exam 22 years ago, and I passed it, and nobody is taking my degree away from me...
You cannot imagine the sense of relief every time I wake up after having this sort of dream. What I find so strange is that I keep on having these dreams 20 years after finishing university, while I have virtually zero dreams about my life at work. I should ask a psychologist to explain this to me...
10
Through science, we have come to know so much about the world around us. With dreams however, confirmation of speculation or attaining certainty of purpose through research is not only elusive but probably impossible to achieve. Watching my sleeping dog dream with his yips and moving paws, I can guess what he is dreaming but it's sobering to realize that we can never know what any animal is dreaming. With people, who can discuss their dreams, we do know more but it's obvious from this article and the comments that we still have no decent level of certainty as to function that dreams serve in people. I was plagued by lead feet dreams when I was younger....... running from danger but with heavier and heavier feet, difficult to lift my legs. As simple a dream as they come but we have no way of achieving any significant degree of certainty as to what the purpose, if any, such a dream serves. A bomb resistant conundrum impervious to science and to us all. What a cool mystery!
1
I had that dream too. It must be a very common one. I thought it means that I can’t reach my goal.
1
Hardly any of my dreams feel negative; in fact many are humorous and downright exotic; most are really entertaining.
I often people my dreamscape with fascinating strangers who seem creative, smart, sexy and very funny. I go to places where walls are covered with bright art, shops filled with beautiful creations and weird inventions; all of which I'm pretty sure I've never seen in real life. And I've never ever been without my pants; (well, maybe in a couple, but that was because, well, I wanted them off. ;-) ) When I wake in the morning I usually just think, "Wow, how could I have possibly made all of this wild and beautiful stuff up?" Then I go about living without giving them another thought.
Now, after reading Ms. Robb's article, I'm afraid I'm not paying enough attention to what I do at night; I need her to tell me how I'm preparing myself to deal with the stresses of life- I just wasn't aware I had all that many.
Could I be telling myself I need to get out more; should I apply for a patent for that self frosting cake and not care who laughs themselves sick; are the people around me so boring I have to make new ones up?
I have a real feeling tonight's offerings may not be as pleasant as usual... I'm officially worried now.
@woodswoman - I also have many adventurous and exciting dreams populated by amazing people - but also other dreams of war, danger, death, even faceless aliens invading us and trying to kill everyone...
If you want to switch your own personal "dreamflix" to a darker genre, I recommend a late night pizza heavy on the pepperoni, a glass of strong wine and an episode of something like the "walking dead" just before bedtime. It will do the trick, but don't blame me if you wake up screaming... it's all part of the fun.
I recall my dreams almost nightly, and have kept dream journals, on and off, for 20-30 years. The majority of my dreams take place on the lake where my family had property and where I spent most summers -- and where I now live in retirement. My fear and anxiety dreams are the usual fare, with the additional element that I am prone to talking or screaming in my sleep, something that often wakes my husband. In addition, Sometimes I have lucid dreams where I can direct aspects of the sceario. Flying dreams are the most peaceful and the ones I wish for most.
2
I've always been a person who's enjoyed dreaming and analyzing my dreams when I wake up the next morning. I've always had a vivid dream life too. Since my soul mate /husband died two years ago, I don't remember my dreams at all. It's as if I don't dream. In the past two years, I've remembered only three dreams and all three were about him. In the sixteen years that we were together I don't remember having dreamed about him even once and in fact, we used to talk about the fact that we didn't dream about each other. I'm very curious as to whether I've stopped dreaming altogether or whether my mind is still in such a state of shock, so to speak, that it's not working properly. I have to add that I suffer from what's known as "Prolonged Grief Syndrome", a fancy name for not having gotten over the death of a loved one. No one besides the few people I'm close to know this because I seem normal, but the truth is that I'm completely dead inside. I wonder if anyone knows about grief and dreaming here. I'd very much like to understand this.
8
@Opinionist ~
Not by any measure, an expert on grief except from personal experience.
Two years grieving the loss of a love of sixteen years does not strike me as prolonged.
I like the term "complicated grief" better than PGS that you used. I found this short article; maybe it will help you:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200812/complicated-grief
3
@Opinionist
Hope you don't mind my commenting, but two years isn't a terribly long time to grieve such an awful loss. We all do it differently. Six years ago one of my children died. I expect I'd still feel dead inside if I hadn't sought help pretty quickly from a trained grief specialist. It took a good solid year of hard work, but it was so worth it. I'm much recovered, and am able to remember my boy without losing my breath and wanting to curl up in a ball. Please go easy on yourself, forget some established timeline and by all means get the "right" help if you aren't already, and let the "right"people in. This is too hard to do alone. You have my best wishes.
3
Yes, dreams are extremely important and should not be shrugged off or ignored. The author is right that remembering and sharing dreams with others can be very valuable. One tool that has helped me understand my dreams better is a "dream dictionary" -- a compilation of dream symbols drawn from the experiences of many people. There are several online. They help you interpret objects and patterns in your dreams. Many recur frequently, which is why psychologists such as Jung believed that all humans participate in a "collective unconscious." Whether that's true, or our individual brains and minds reproduce similar symbols on our own, it's interesting that whatever dream you have many others have probably had it too.
3
Another hypothesis.
In a dream during sleep the dreamers consciousness appears to divide into other dream objects and participants and thoughts and feelings; into various people, interactions, tastes and smells, objects, flowers, mountains, being in a park or by the sea, etc...
And at the time it all seems real to our dream senses.
But all the contents are just one dreaming consciousness appearing as a near infinite variety of things and experiences.
Perhaps a dream at night is an analogy to help us understand what we call waking "reality".
Perhaps what we call waking reality is nothing but our own consciousness appearing or projecting -- in a way we of course don't yet understand -- as the world or universe, and all it contains.
And to change the world we experience we have to change the contents of our consciousness.
I believe dreams do help us release stress and anxieties, but their real value is they can help us understand thru analogy the great mystery at a little deeper level. Just food for thought.
2
A very interesting piece. If you believe in the process of natural selection, dreams very well might have something to do with survival in the wakeful world whether that be combat, business, social interactions, etc. Or, dreams could be the result of some sort of maintenance process. Perhaps it's a combination of multiple processes. It's not clear to me why we need sleep or what it really does. The topic of neuroscience is fascinating, and our ability to comprehend our own minds which are highly advanced compared to other life forms but probably still quite primitive on an absolute scale translates out to there's a lot of progress yet to be made going forward.
Dreams are another world we inhabit. I have the typical ones of university chaos and having to overcome various obstacles. As a sailor sometimes I find myself sailing on roads and highways which is a real test of seamanship. My party trick in dreams is the ability to levitate. In the end I’m always very happy to wake up in the morning.
REM sleep occurs in all warm blooded creatures i.e. mammals and birds except perhaps the spiny echidna. We only learned that REM even existed less than 70 years ago, a discovery that fostered an incredible amount of science and the creation of sleep medicine. While REM very likely has a role in consolidating memory and learning, important functions for surviving life in nature, the human search for the meaning of life, the desire to make sense out of chaos and reduce uncertainty lead to the pseudoscientific, speculative hypothesizing illustrated here and throughout history. A core principle of scientific research is that good experimental design makes no a priori assumptions but seeks to disprove the null hypothesis, in this case that dreams have no meaning at all. There is nothing wrong with attributing meaning to dreams but we should probably be careful about making important, even life changing decisions on the basis of those attributions rather than the hard work of logically assessing our lives while fully awake.
4
I have never had anyone tell me they thought sharing dreams was juvenile. I've actually never even heard of that. My mother was an active dreamer and would often tell about her dreams in the morning. Usually in an amusing way. Perhaps this is why I have always assumed dreams were interesting and part of normal life. I have alway dreamt prolifically and generally remember all my dreams - at least for a while. I do know that dreams are necessary to my well being and, among other things, "clean up" loose ends and unresolved issues in my subconscious so that my general thought process and overall mental state improves. I don't always understand how or why. My gut feeling is that the study of students who had anxious dreams of their impending exams did not prove that anxiety dreams improve performance but proved that performance anxiety causes anxious dreams and drives students to prepare better for tests. It seems silly, but I have come to believe that dreams of being unclothed have to do, at least partially, with the state of undress during sleep. A clothed versus unclothed dream study? There are many other issues not mentioned in such a short article. Their are the "seminal" dreams that seem to come out of nowhere and seem to help define one's life and can take years to absorb. Then there is the whole range of dreams where the dreamer becomes conscious of dreaming and starts to influence the dream in some way. Much has been written about this. Good article.
While I don’t keep a dream journal I have found it worthwhile to consider my dreams and what problems or feelings they are working out for me. I’ve also noticed as I dramatically I increased my multimedia screen time Compared to the book time of my growing up years, that my dreams became much more visual and colorful. I dream in fully realized images on a frequent basis now. If I could draw or paint I could provide detailed accounts of buildings, clothing, scenario and fantastic landscapes. For decades my dreams were narratives and impressions without that kind specificity. I’m so curious to know if others have seen changes like that. Feels like science will reach understanding of dreams, someday.
I'm 62 years old. And for as long as I can remember all my dreams involved bodies of water. Crossing bridges, long causeways. Watching waves and tides. But recently, despite not being a heavy cell phone user, I always seem to include that usually trusty device in all my dreams. Only the phone doesn't work! It's either infected by a mysterious and animated virus or the code is frustratingly inoperative. My panic in these dreams grows and grows, as does my helplessness and despair as I attempt to punch in the correct numbers or access a desired page. Oh my god, is there anyone else out there experiencing this on a regular basis? I feel as if it might be a harbinger of a new and modern mental infirmity.
Like most posters, I have many dreams about being unprepared (including at college, which I left more than 30 years ago).
But very occasionally I'll have a dream I cherish: Once I dreamt that a young Robert Redford attentively pursued and kissed me.
What is that about? Desire for love, perhaps, but by day it's a topic usually far from my mind.
3
Most old cultures valued the dream as useful information it seems- learning one's symbol system made from one's own life was just extra information to factor in. We are still a part of nature no matter how far away our culture gets. Reading Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung is fascinating about the "little dreams" that are filtering through everyday anxieties etc, and "big dreams"- the signals from one's psyche to pay attention to what is going on at a deeper level.
One interesting story Joseph Campbell told was about people who are so unconscious and disconnected and unresponsive to inner information that their lives begin to live them instead of the other way around. I guess you only get so many warnings to shape up. Reminded me of Trump. He also said those are the people you need to have enough sense not to get in the car with when they are driving- they might jerk the wheel and go over the edge.
6
There's evidence that the physical process of dreaming has beneficial functions. But the idea that the content of dreams can be read so as to tell us anything interesting about ourselves has never been established. I seem to recall Wittgenstein comparing a dream to a canvas with some markings on it and the analysis of dreams as trying to fill it in so as to find THE completed painting. It seems more likely to me that dreams are random-like gatherings of fragments of past experiences.
I am open to the idea that dreams are basically neurological play, in which the brain exercises, or practices for the tasks it must perform. Clearly, dreaming is a very important function of the brain, and not just "mental dandruff." But I have a hard time believing that the specific content is particularly meaningful. In the past I kept dream diaries where I would write down my dreams the moment I woke up so that I didn't forget them; they were fascinating and entertaining to read, but in no way instructive.
1
Dreams are just about storing memories. Looking for the right places to index them in our memories.
Years ago I heard or read to do this: when you wake up after you were dreaming, right away, ask yourself « what memory from the last day or so was I trying to index / store ? »
I have never had the slightest trouble guessing, nor has there ever been any doubt about what it was. I always know, almost instantly, and I am always very confident of what it was.
Which would make sense. It is all about remembering. Storing things away in « long term memory », from there place in « short term memory ».
Trying to find the other memories to put it next to. Things have to be sorted, otherwise you will never find them.
1
I read a novel many years ago about a doctor who learned to remember and analyze his dreams. Ever since my children could talk, I’ve encouraged them over breakfast to discuss their dreams. They’re all off at college now, but I’m glad to finally read some validation of my encouragement for them to reflect on what they’ve dreamed. I’ve always had long and vivid dreams — but it’s been a long time since I flew, forgot my pants, forgot to drop the course before finding myself in the exam room, or lost all my teeth!
A tip about remembering dreams: there are three ways to note them. 1.) grab your smartphone at your bed stand and record it while you’re just getting out of the dream state. 2.) write it down in the morning after you’re fully awake. 3.) write it down later in the day. Each result will be profoundly different. Many details quickly evaporate. Important aspects too. The best version is the soonest one. If you wake up in the middle of the night, if you feel it’s an important dream, record it. I’ve played back some of mine years later and they are astonishing. But I prefer writing what I remember of them in the morning.
3
In very early childhood I had a recurring dream of traveling through dark empty limitless space occasionally nearing and passing an area ill defined but familiar, but speeding on through more nothingness toward some destination. Awake, in my teens, I read Milton's "Paradise Lost" and was thunderstruck by the opening description - my old dream exactly! I had Rheumatic Fever very young and would fall asleep focused on my labored breathing and that dream would come. Since most of our evolution took place immersed in the ocean I think we retain somewhere in our DNA a memory of and instinctive instruction for travel in "the deep", many onion layers beneath consciousness. Biology is no "accident". I follows from physics. Beneath the mind, proteins express hormones that evoke emotions that prompt behavior. Thinking about it is our peculiarity. The brain system turns off only once. It must be always on. Dreams are a sort of "screen saver" manifestation. "Self is well preserved" because consciousness is all about the self, first synthesized a few months once out of the amniotic water, free in this our world.
2
You should look up Stanislav Grof and his work on the Perinatal Experience. Sounds like you’ve figured a lot about it all by yourself. His work is thorough and brilliant.
Great article. I often remember my dreams and actually read this article just after waking from a particularly odd one. I was interested in the hypothesis about why dream content is so often negative and anxiety producing. I thought that was a reflection of my personality because I’m almost always in some anxious or uncomfortable situation in my dreams. And yes, I still have the math test dream where I’ve “forgotten” to attend class all semester. And I’m a retired woman who is 68 years old!
1
Love this topic. Thanks for the piece. Stunning there's not a single mention of Freud, the founder of dream analysis, and Jung, his protege, who later broke from his mentor. Why not?
7
Good article, but I agree, especially about Jung. His work has made a huge difference in my life.
3
Thanks for this article. I take melatonin to help me sleep, and another melatonin user once complained that it gave him nightmares. I actually like nightmares - when I wake up, and I realize it's only a dream (like a child, knowing it's only a movie, only a story, etc.), I find this an enormous relief.
1
Besides all the usual dreams such as being late for an exam or a joyful reunion with a deceased loved one, I vividly remember one dream that was unlike all the rest.
In the dream I was reading a comic book, something most of us have done but something I do quite rarely.
As I turned the pages, the story was interesting and it was new. Each turn of the page revealed a lot of new artwork and many balloons of text. In the dream, I dutifully read all the panels one by one, page after page.
After waking and thinking about the dream, a strange feeling came over me. Exactly WHERE was this stuff stored? Where was it coming from? There was way too much of it to have been just made up "on the fly." And if it was, it was being made up professionally, instantly, and not by the observer who was being surprised by it.
The story in the comic book was unpredictable, it was detailed, it was interesting. Who created all that artwork and that story? I am not a comic book author, far from it. Maybe these are subtle questions but I still wonder -- how did all of that work get done, and who did it?
10
I am a performer, and I have a recurring dream. I am in a play, it's opening night, and all of a sudden I realize that I not even don't know my lines, I'm also not aware of the plot of the play, or any of the staging.
1
As a teen I was a devotee of Freud - read all things Freudian including his book 'On the Interpretation of Dreams'. Jung et al also had much to say about dreams. I was saturated in reading and thinking about dreams. I went into psychology in college then biopschology as a PhD student, then neuroscience as a posstdoc. In college I had control of my dreams.
I dreamed in color, could think of a topic before sleep then create a whole dream sequence about, could change the course of the dream during sleep. In graduate and postdoc years I didn't dream at all or at least didn't remember them. I never knew if it was age, my distancing from the straightforward world of psychogy, or just beginning to be practical and livingin the present.
But here I am, decades later, much older and I'm dreaming vividly again. But not coherent stories, just what was termed the 'residue of the day'. Events I might have noticed peripherally but didn't make it to the cortical level come out in the dream. Dreams are something to pay attention to.
As long as these "scientists" are going to enter the field of speculative philosophy concerning dreams, they'd do well to drop their absurd moral/ideological resistance to psychoanalysis. Freud's Interpretation of Dreams is a real mind blower and still the litmus test of an open mind.
His explanations of how the "dream work" incorporates the previous day's thoughts into the "manifest content" of the dream, while the darkest, most ambivalent parts of our personalities basically piggy-back on those incorporations and live inside the dream work, is uncanny and applicable to a whole lot more than dreams (e.g., to how language, religion, and politics all work).
Lacan and Zizek have of course expanded and deepened Freud's insights, but the anti-intellectualism of American culture in general is epitomized by its prejudice against psychoanalysis, so I wouldn't be surprised if Ms Robb's feel-good bromides about dreams prove more popular.
6
Three years ago the manufacturers of Somnote (Chloral Hydrate) pulled their memory-robbing sleeping pill from the market and my doctor finally prescribed a sleeping pill (Lunesta that had been introduced in 2005) enabling me to dream for the first time in 43 years, rescuing my memory and indeed my life. This is what I learnt.
We lack the bandwidth to process all anxiety-related events as they occur during the day so we suppress event memories in the unconscious mind and event negative emotions in our muscles so depleting both mental clarity and physical vitality. Most dreaming releases the negative emotions of a suppressed event in a harmless scenario while asleep so the event memory can then be passed emotion-free to the conscious mind.
To start with my dreams were so frightening that I focused on consciously clearing traumas during the day by replaying each many times during the day while visualizing a change of their background color. That caused a new memory without the trauma to be made; the troubled version disappearing forever.
Having cleared the traumas, I found that saying out loud "John surrenders unconditionally and completely lets go" before sleep promoted the maximum release of suppressed anxiety-related memories in dreams. And it was important to never resist. If the car was going to crash, fall off a mountain, then let it in order to release the stuck emotion.
Later, when major unresolved issues were presented, I took sides and forcefully participated.
91
@John Smith,
Well, it certainly explains why even though we go to sleep (or try to) with anxiety about all the looming tasks and responsibilities that feel overwhelming, generally we always feel better in the light of day.
10
@John Smith
It's very interesting to hear about how you pre-process anxieties before falling asleep. I haven't heard of this before and will now look into it. I am a vivid dreamer, and despite a pretty darn charmed life, at 40 I have terrifying nightmares a few times a month. It's stuff so awful that I force myself awake, unable to fall back asleep the same night, haunted by images for days or weeks. I don't even look at posters for horror movies much less watch them; I don't know where my brain gets this stuff. Letting my nightmares play out, the way you recommend, without waking myself seems impossible. But hearing there may be a way to pre-process anxieties and calm the nightmare-generator gives me hope.
10
@io Maybe there is an external reason for your dreams. I am 45 and would have never believed in something external existing that could influence us until I experienced it myself. I actually experienced it many times looking back but was unwilling to call it what it was at the time.
1
Very interesting observations by of all things science.
I have always had a dynamic dream life, but I found years ago when I decided to keep a dream journal, my dreams overtook my waking time. I had a career to tend too. But now that I’m retired, I’ve allowed them into my journals and — wow!, are they ever clever and profound. But I still don’t want them taking over my life. The author’s right: analyzing the simplest snippet leads to an endless yarn.
I have done some very interesting work with Pierre Grimes. His theories about dreams are profound. He’s a theorist, not a scientist. But dreams require theories as well as studies.
5
I’ve played the violin all my life but not consistently and not that well. Every now and then I have a dream where I’m playing a beautiful and difficult piece of music and it is executed flawlessly. I hear it and feel it in all it’s beauty. It’s wonderful, and when I wake I am greatly moved by the experience. What I can’t do in waking life I can do in those dreams.
172
I “write” gorgeous poems and stories in my sleep. Then I wake up and I can’t. So frustrating as a writer.
13
@Landy
I am tone deaf. But once I had a dream in which I sang at a wedding. Not only that, but I had composed the music and the lyrics. I have not forgotten the feeling of that dream even though it was twenty years ago.
34
@C ~
Have you considered that your dream is encouraging you to persist in your writing?
Maybe try free writing with no expectations of finished product. "Writing Down the Bones" by Natalie Goldberg might inspire.
17
I support the idea that we may have evolved dreams to prepare us for vital situations. There could have been a positive selection for those who tended to have the dreams and recall them. As a teacher who lectured to classes of several hundred students, my most common and memorable “nightmare” was getting in front of my class woefully unprepared to teach. I had not reviewed the material, or I finished the lecture way too soon, with the class wondering what they had paid for. I recalled these dreams so vividly, there is no doubt my fear of poor preparation was enhanced. I see no reason why in a more dangerous scenario, a dream could reinforce the conscious need for attentiveness and preparation. I may only have given a bad lecture, but my ancestors may have perished.
63
My teaching nightmare is arriving late to class, and all of the students are locked out if the room. I feel tremendous anxiety that my carelessness has put them in peril. In life- I’m always super early for class.
5
The idea that dreams help us to prepare for survival tasks is misleading. As if dreams care about our survival, or what we think we need to do. This article gives the impression that dreams are biological functions, separate from conciousness, and more importantly, our agency. This is the problem with experimental psychology, this strange separation between what an individual thinks, and their "reality," as explained to us by an expert.
My dreams are extentions of what I do, residue of my experiences and thoughts. They are not about the future but about my past, specifically, what I did that day. They point to what I, tyjcar, am thinking about, whether I admit it to myself or not. That most dreams are negative is not by design, but an extension of the condition of being alive. That is, we are fearful creatures.
107
I believe that everything in my dreams is me. Parts of myself known and unknown. These parts are speaking to me using the universal language of symbols. To understand these symbols means getting a sense of what my associations are to the animals, people, places and things that show up. So my dreams aren't typically what they look like on the surface. They are more sophisticated and subtle than that. I believe we dream so we can know all the parts of ourselves. So we can know who we are, know what's important to us and what we want.
3
Contrary to the idea that dreams about being unprepared for exams seem ridiculous and funny upon awakening, I find such dreams really disturb me. They seem so real that it takes me a while, after waking up, to realize that they are "just a dream". And even after I figure that out, it bothers me that somehow the dream represents something I'm not prepared for.
196
@David Goldberg Try this. Take that while after waking to reflect that perhaps the disturbance is a good thing - a teaching of your waking brain about something wonderful about yourself that was previously isolated in your unconscious brain. Revel in the feeling, rather than worrying about what it represents.
5
@David Goldberg I agree. I've had the "test dream" and variations (can't find the classroom, can't remember my class schedule, etc.) many times. I attended a very competitive university and learned that my success in a small highschool was not in the same league with other students from much larger and more competitive highschools. Plus I didn't give it my best effort, since I'd never had to before. The results were mediocre, as you might guess. So guilt is probable a factor. And yes, those dreams can be pretty disturbing.
14
@David Goldberg-I graduated from medical school thirtynine years ago. When I awaken after one of those dreams (for me, the scenario is that I can’t find the classroom in which the exam is being held) I am processing the idea that I have been fraudulently practicing medicine, the lawyers, DEA, and licensing boards are going to come after me, and how do I explain all this to my universe. Unsettling for the rest of the day, usually. Not at all humorous to me, either.
12
Look forward to reading Alice Robb's book. I experience a variety of dreams, some chaotic that seem to make no sense.
Then there are dreams that seem to come from the heart or from the beyond. Just this past week I dreamed of my beloved mare Special who was free jumping and in and out. I could see as she adjusted her stride for the second take-off as if I were there watching. I watched again and again as she perfectly navigated the two jumps with one stride in between.
Where did this beautiful dream come from? My mare died 21 years ago this month and in this dream she was in her prime. Evocative in a most wonderful way.
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@Mary Ann Donahue I would guess your dreaming self was remembering Special with great love on the anniversary of her death. Did she happen to live to 21?
7
@Jan ~
Thank you for your reply. She actually lived just 3 1/2 months shy of turning 23.
She died Nov. 21, 1997.
In this dream she "lived again".
14
@Mary Ann Donahue I love dreams like these, of beloved people or pets.
11
Try Freud.
7
We are spiritual beings who have potential to touch our vast special uniqueness - and we have also endured to various degrees pain & suffering that remains unresolved & tortures us to the end.
We live in a exterior world filled with pretending, where we are expected to keep our behavior (& even inner world) between the lines of what we think (!) society deems as acceptable or we will be further shunned. It takes tremendous courage to work out those inner demons & let your free spirit fly - living in a world that expects us to be "normal"
Dreams are one window into trying to make sense of & work out this pain, conflict, & let our uniqueness live - because we feel it is unsafe or unacceptable in waking life.
Id, Ego, Super Ego anyone?
2
While it is interesting to read about modern-day studies on the importance of dreams, and if I might be forgiven being the pedantic academic, the importance of dreams and interpreting them has long interested the ancients. On the rabbis of the Talmud see, e.g.:
Holger Zellentin, "Jewish Dreams Between Roman Palestine and Sasanian Babylonia: Cultural and Geographic Borders in Rabbinic Discourse (Yerushalmi Ma‘aser Sheni 57c, 17–24 and Bavli Berakhot 58a–b)"
Philip S. Alexander, "Bavli Berakhot 55a-57b : the talmudic dreambook in context", Journal of Jewish Studies 46 (1995) 230-248
I hope Ms. Robb does not ignore the wisdom of ancient society. Not always as dated as it would seem to be.
4
I was once awakened at dawn by a dream that my dog had gone into the land of the dead; the minute I was fully conscious the animal hospital called to say he had just died.
1
@D Priest
I dreamed my grandmother's best friend, in her 90's, came for a very brief visit. Upon awakening, it felt so real, as if she had actually been with me. Learned shortly after that she had passed away. Like to think that she stopped by to say goodbye.
2
The value of a dream is in the sharing of the dream with another person.
2
To be honest, I don't know anyone who thinks dreams are just silly little episodes. Most know there's something there and wonder about the meaning behind them.
8
@AACNY
I never agree with your posts but this one I completely agree with. *high five*.
1
Not one mention of CG Jung?
18
I have recurring dreams at age 50 about having a college exam and haven’t read the books and there is no way out - help! I still wake up shaken. I hope this dream, as disturbing as it is, isn’t replaced with “hey, I lost my pants!” Fascinating article
Dreams are the origin data programmed in our brains by the interstellar explorers who planted humans on earth. Well, maybe not.
3
It is mostly a cultural phenomenon. In a Judeo-Christian civilization, almost everybody feels some guilt, excepts to be punished in some way.
How do we know that we are actually remembering dreams and not creating them at the time we claim to recall them?
1
Dreams, like thoughts, are very important results of mental processes, obviously, except to some neuroscientists who don't believe either they or mental processes exist.
As a career-long university professor my exam dreams never stopped. Instead, they got replaced by dreams that I had forgotten to give the exam. And yes, I would leave the hotel at a conference in a strange city only to discover that I had no pants and couldn't remember how to get back.
2
This is all fine but didn’t Freud said it hundred years ago already?
13
The topic of dreams is compelling to most of us, regardless of what the writer posits. Alas, her article is so much about her own recurring dreams (sorry but I just don’t care so much about you, you, you) interspersed with sparse snippets of this or that expert, that I wanted to, um, yawn. It did, however, prompt me to go to other sources of dream analysis, and I learned a lot from those citations, so I guess it wasn’t a total snooze.
"All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream."
Edgar Allan Poe
3
I kept waiting for a mention of Carl Jung, but none ever came. I doubt that anyone before his time or since has done more dream work than he.
14
@Dream catcher
Freud.
1
A few years ago I sorted out that my flight dreams were telling me that I did not feel that I had my “feet on the ground.”
1
Wedeclare: Regarding the meaning of dreams. Perhaps because we sleep together most of the time, we experience dreams that are surprisingly similar and synchronized in content: We are are dressed the same externally but our underclothing is switched in gender ... Peos and I are wearimg feminine undergarments and Lele, Wewe, Mkoo and Basha have donned masculine undergarments. We are in a meeting with a client who is wearing only a red tutu. All of us experience that same dream content several times a month. Figure that one out.
1
I journal my most vivid dreams, and the ties to real life are unmistakable. After leaving a good job of many years, I had dreams of sliding down chutes and falling down ladders. Got a new job and dreamt of difficulty climbing up ladders. A table in one dream was exactly the conference table from a former workplace.
It makes complete sense that our dreams are built around out real life anxieties. The brain works like a convolutional coder, taking in streams of input and outputting the best “story reality” it can from whatever input signals are provided. More inputs will come from the areas of highest anxiety, while sleeping.
32
One subject, social studies was not my cup of tea. Now, I am a retired person. It is a recurring dream that I am taking a social studies exam and everyone else is busy answering the question paper. My brain is totally blank. When I wake up from that nightmare, I am so glad that I am old and it was only a dream.
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@Usha Mohan
One of my recurring anxiety dreams is the old one of being late to school or failing to register or show up for classes. It used to be that it wasn't till I woke up that I could reassure myself there was nothing to be scared of -- I'm no longer in school. Now, though, this realization usually penetrates the dream itself. I'll be frantically pedaling my bike to school, or trying to find the Dean's office to get my schedule, and then I will remember -- still within the dream -- "Hey, I'm 67 years old. I don't need to do this."
Progress, I suppose.
13
Since becoming a tradesman and contractor 8 years ago my anxiety dreams became work related and very frequent. Some version of trying to leave a job site but cannot find my tools to finish and leave. Or driving my truck home and have to navigate down impossibly steep slopes, reckon that's the falling dream. Or getting lost in a familiar place and being late for something important.
It took me a long time to process these newly disturbing dreams. But eventually realized it was stress from being my own boss and taking on challenging projects. As my experience and knowledge increase the dreams have becoming much less frequent. When I do have one now, it's usually a sign I am getting stressed out and need to slow down a bit. Or do a little more research on the up coming project.
11
I would be much happier if I never remembered a dream again. I experience nightmares 2 - 4 times per week since and every month or so wake up screaming. The theme is consistent and quite negative. I understand the reasons for the dreams and have tried several standard approaches over the decades in an effort to reach a resolution. I'm glad the author and others have found examining them useful but for some of us they are never-ending torment.
5
@Christopher Hawkins. Have you tried EMDR therapy? It has helped many people.
1
Alice Robb's column provides no incentive to buy her book. As many of the readers' responses have noted, to ignore Freud is bizarre beyond belief. He may be out of fashion, and he may have been limited or wrong in many respects, but to give the impression, as she does, that no one has ever examined the importance of dreams before, and to back her thesis with fatuous claims from evolutionary biologists who predictably say the same thing about everything--if it exists gives us an evolutionary advantage--is really shameful. If there ever was a lesson in repression, it is that Freud has been disappeared from today's discourse about human psychological phenomena.
24
@Peter- Freud was a repressive and repressed person and personality wise despite his genius... as any of his theories reveal. His theory of the subconscious is a dark and scary place.I say GO with Carl Jung...
But Alice Robb with her idea, as you say, that "no one has ever examined the importance of dreams before," is quite SHOCKING, especially her main reliance on behavioral science.
The range of human dream experience and import can hardly be clarified - alone - in "scientific studies" by psychologists - who often aren't recognized as - well- scientist...
Dreams are the realm of the imagination, the magical, the spiritual. I hope to some people this is the content and the "meaning" of their/our dreams.
I was one of those people who never remembered dreams until I started keeping a journal. The trick was to start writing immediately on waking. What struck me at the time was that I recognized (or attributed) specific meanings to the dreams as I wrote them. Recurring dreams started making sense. I too think dreams are more of a residue of anxieties etc. rather than pointers for the future. But in contemplating them we often do think of why an issue or image keeps reappearing, and may help us deal with it better.
8
I don’t have much to contribute to the comments already posted; except that I like dreams, & try to understand their meaning in my life. Some are simply anxiety dreams trying to figure out some vexing problem, some are mystifying & as such I refuse to simply dismiss them. If I wake without a sense of a dream I’m a bit disappointed. Everyone can dream, it’s up to the dreamer once awake. It’s a wonderful part of life.
4
Dream analysis has come a long way since the days of Sigmund Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams. He was wrong about so many things, dream symbolism being the most glaring. The one thing he got right was that dreams are about emotions. As someone who has recorded their dreams (almost 3,000 thus far) for years, I appreciate how Ms Daura focuses on the science of dreams. Based on my experience, I think the longer science pursues the nature of dreams they will run into the nature of reality which underpins by the fundamental properties of perspective (including those of science, religion and the very definition of self). Anyone who has had a dejevu experience has experienced the power of dreams–emotions, emotional reaction. The sequence of events, whether logical or illogical, are not the kernel, but the extraneous husk.
3
@Lynard
Freud was wrong about dream symbolism? Perhaps you are thinking of Jung's dream symbolism. Freud taught that objects appearing in dreams did not have a universal meaning, but had specific meaning for that individual.
We all do dream, some more vividly and better recalled than others, and dreams have always been a mainstay topic for human conversation. Whether dreams contain actual insight and realization rather random bits of "self" floating and coalescing during sleep time is almost certainly a topic from prehistory, not to mention the Bible.
Although there was some mention of emotions (Revonsuo), the discussion here seems more mechanical, focusing on the cognitive transfer of dream to conscious reality.
More often, I think, our grasp of dreams is due to the effect (or affect) of what remains the next day. A disconnected, illogical and preposterous dream can still carry an inordinate amount of emotion, such as the terrifying nightmare that was spawned within a ridiculous sequence of dream events that we know cognitively was "just a dream".
But long after waking up a person can carry that feeling, and it can influence reactive behavior during the day - for better or for worse - and with little or no cognition at all.
2
Relationship decisions made on the basis of dreams? I would say the gentleman was lucky she had the dream.
29
@William Stuber I had the same thought. If you make your decisions on going out on a 2nd date on the basis of your dreams, you might as well use an “8 ball” to decide whether to change jobs, or something really important
12
Also, if your criteria for choosing a person to spend time with include him being "tall" you are being incredibly, um, short-sighted.
1
I have a dream that shows up a few times a year, and is always amazing to me when I wake up and remember it.
The theme is like this: I have arrived somewhere high up and cannot get down the same way I got there. Bleachers or balcony or tree. In fact, there is no way to get down at all, except to jump or let myself fall down. After fretting over what to do for half an hour, I throw myself off the high place, flinging myself into space, expecting myself to land with a broken leg or arm.
Instead, I discover that I'm not moving very fast at all. In fact, I am floating down to the ground, and land unhurt but amazed.
From this dream I learn to take risks.
16
The most transformative, illuminating therapy I ever underwent was with a Jungian therapist who emphasized dream analysis.
As a follower of Hillman (who descended from Jung, who descended from Freud), he took dreams very seriously.
Although there is no mention of Jung or other early 20th century analysts in this excerpt, I wonder if the author deals with them in the fuller book.
I have my doubts, since the understanding expressed here feels more popularly oriented, lacking the sophistication, nuance and gravity of Jung and others. Perhaps this was done consciously, in the attempt to bring more people new to the subject in.
But if so, it strikes me as an inaccurate simplification of a rich, well established and powerful tradition of therapeutic practice, going back well before Freud to biblical times, with Joseph's dream analysis on behalf of the Pharoah, now that I think of it.
46
@Spencer Chandler
As a psychologist who uses dream analysis in my practice, I can state unequivocally that dreams are a rich source of psychological insight and healing. One of the main understandings of dreamwork is that dreams never lie! Of course, it takes time and education to learn to unpack one's dreams. There is an excellent little book by Robert Johnson called "Inner Work" which does a good job of explaining the basic dream analysis process from a Jungian perspective.
Often, it is difficult to understand the symbols and metaphors that are produced by the unconscious mind, but it is always well worth the effort. For instance, I have a client who is not depressed but was considering using an antidepressant drug to help her with severe insomnia. That night she dreamt she was getting into a vehicle (a vehicle is usually a symbol for one's one vehicle -- the body), and she sees a bottle of the antidepressant she was contemplating using. She looks at it and she hears a voice say, "Careful. It's a purple bomb!"
In my client's world, the color purple or violet is associated with her brain. When she awoke she understood immediately that the drug she was considering would be a bomb to her brain. This is one small example of how dreams can inform and guide us.
To try to understand dreams only from a scientific perspective will inevitably miss the pure wellspring of information available to each of us every night.
15
Thank you Spencer and Candida for this thread. I have also been deeply affected by the work of Jung and his successors. I was disturbed that no mention of Jung et al was to be found in the article.
5
It is remarkable, the uniformity of anxiety based dreams, and of simply bad dreams. Little was said in the article of good dreams. Sometimes, for me, both the good and the bad can have the same subject. I sometimes dream of flying a small plane and being forced to dodge utility wires at the last moment. This has no basis in my life experience and, unlike the ubiquitous test anxiety dream, is utterly inexplicable. The pleasant version involves no plane, only me willing myself up into the air and gliding about at will, not at great elevation, but powerfully. It is a delight, and far too rare. Has anyone had the same experience?
4
@PG When I was much younger, I dreamed I was flying many times. As long as I managed never to touch anything I could stay in the air and feel the wind in my face. I loved it! Old age appears to have robbed me of flight.
8
@PG Yes, many flying type dreams. They always seem very real and it is a little disappointing when I realize it was a dream. sometimes during the dream, I dream that I know I am in a dream.
1
With no expertise on the subject whatsoever, I have this theory to offer about dreams, that sleep is not “unconsciousness” in the sense we usually understand it to be, that we are always conscious, just a different kind, always thinking, working our way through life’s puzzles and challenges. The physical body needs to recharge so it shuts down each day but the mind keeps on working.
I’ve had a 50-year hobby of writing songs, and 20-some years ago, I got stuck on one. I just couldn’t get anywhere with the bridge before I was too tired at the end of the day to continue. So one night I purposefully told myself, I’m going to sleep but I’m going to continue to work on this overnight. When I awoke in the morning it seemed like a mini miracle. I’d completely finished the song — lyrics, melody, chords ... it was all there. I immediately went to the keyboard and wrote down the basics so I wouldn’t forget. Since then I’ve been reassured that giving the body rest doesn’t mean I’ll be neglecting anything that needs my attention.
How many readers who struggle to finish the NYT crossword before bedtime, discover that the unsolved clues have all been answered by morning?
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@R Pietro
There is actual research on overnight learning. Maybe someone else can provide a link. And yes, I've experienced the NYT crossword effect, though it can also take up to a week for the light to dawn.
5
Dreams are useful as topics of light entertaining discussion and for Steven King to come up with his latest novel.
There are many slips of scientific linking and basis for proof of any of the 'ideas' put forth as to the analysis of the content of dreams.
I will agree that interrupting REM sleep, during which time most dream, and we do not recall it, is important.
The content of a dream, which often is immediately forgotten upon awakening or before we awake, is of no value except to be disturbing. Yes, some but not all dream more vivid and alarming dreams when stressed, but even more puzzling is why, when all is going well and stress is at a lower level, do some people still have alarming dreams?
There is no strong evidence that any recurring or disturbing dream has had productive or life changing value in the person's awakened state. If you think you have one, please share it.
Of course there are those who read horoscopes and 'see' themselves being described, but there is scant firm evidence one who has guidance from dreams, astrology or horoscopes has benefited from it. To attach outcomes to dreams smacks of Joseph and his dream interpretation skills in Genesis.
One last thought: Dreams occur mainly during REM sleep, which happens after a preparatory stages of unconsciousness. But yet (especially when tired) some enter into a dream state withing seconds after falling asleep. Solid research, not fanatical discussion is needed.
When I was younger and a more sound sleeper, I rarely awoke in the morning with the sense of having dreamed at all. If I did remember a dream, it quickly faded from memory within a few seconds. The notable exceptions were the universal unprepared-for-the-exam dreams and the being-naked-in-a-crowd dreams, which are just so vivid and anxiety producing.
The variation of the exam dream that I experience is I suddenly realize that I have a final exam in a few minutes and never studied for it and have forgotten to attend most of the classes.
Coincidentally, a few nights ago I dreamed that I had arrived in some place having passed by lots of people. When I looked down I saw that I was wearing no clothes from the waist down and realized that everyone had seen me naked. The shock actually woke me up.
3
@Ronald Aaronson -- I have the same one about realizing I am naked from the waist down, but I don't recall ever having anyone comment in the dream about my lack of pants. It's always as if I have gotten away with it. Same for you?
@Honeybee thank you for sharing. I have the recurring married to an ex-boyfriend dream. I usually share my dreams with my husband but that's one I don't share!
2
@GriswoldPlankman I left out the real answer to your question: No, notwithstanding the lack of comments, I do not feel that I "got away with it."
Huh - my classic anxiety dream is also about school, but never tests. Usually it's near the end of a semester/term when I suddenly realize that I've completely forgotten about a course (or neglected it) and never studied (or never attended class). The reasons for this failure vary, but the general outline is the same.
Dreams can be fascinating, but for me they tend to disappear pretty quickly upon wakening or to run together or to have details which defy description or all of the above.
51
@Anne-Marie Hislop
I've had that dream. The ones I remembered most vividly were those in which I was the teacher rather than the student.
2
@Anne-Marie Hislop
The forgotten-course dream has been the most common one in my repertoire. The dream occasionally morphed into one in which I had been assigned a course but had forgotten about it, soon after I was an assistant professor and continues to this day, long after my retirement from academia. One might think that such an insistent and long-lived dream does something "good" for me, but like similar analyses in evolutionary theory there are many pitfalls in identifying a trait or characteristic and then go shopping for some positive outcome that might be facilitated by repetitive dreaming.
3
@Anne-Marie Hislop I, too, had the dreams but combined with having to take a test in the subject I had not studied and/or being unable to find the classroom and if I did find the classroom, I just sat at the desk unable to complete the test. Then one night I found the classroom and finished the test. Voila! I must have been working through something bothering me all those years since I have not had the exam dream since.
7
I participated in a dream group loosely based on Jungian theory. I found it interesting how often we women dreamed of having the keys to the car. The practice was really restorative
12
@Mary Wade. Finally someone mentions Jung in their comments! Joseph Campbell, and more recently Jordan Peterson in “Maps of Meaning” have addressed this issue. Neither are particularly easy to read, but are immensely rewarding.
One question about dreams I've had for a really long time is where do these "strangers" in my dreams come from? Did I create them, or are they faces of people I've passed by in daily life without consciously noticing them? Or maybe some combination of the two? I've also created beautiful fabrics in my dreams on more than one occasion, even though I have no waking experience with that sort of thing or any other visual art. Did I create them, or are they plagiarized? The brain is so fascinating.
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Our memories are networks of neurons that "are wired together to fire together." The most important aspects of our lives imprint the strongest neural networks, and connect them to more other networks (because these important things are connected to so many other aspects of our lives) so naturally as dreams bounce around our recorded experience (flow through neural networks) they frequently trigger these most important networks (important exams, stress at work, former lovers).
As for the no pants thing . . . maybe the mind is entering the body's current state of undress into the dream.
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I, too, have been fascinated with dreams for a long time. And here's what I've learned: they're like an Instagram story that depicts what we most fear or most desire. The trouble is, sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.
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I agree with jim, no one ever told me dreaming is juvenile or silly and to let it go. I have analyzed my dreams all my life and I am now 63.
One of the most fascinating books I ever read about dreaming was Ann Faraday's "The Dream Game," in which she noted that many dreams contain puns and/or also may be warning you of dangers that have slipped by your conscious self.
For instance, in one dream, a woman was having difficulty with a sweater she was trying to get on or off, while her friend was "helping" her. When she awoke, she realized this particular friend had been "pulling the wool over her eyes" regarding an important issue.
I look at my dreams as fascinating puzzles to solve that will help me navigate my life or as important messages that should command my attention. The fact that they are present and have evolved not only in humans but in many other species as proved by science must mean they have some importance for survival.
And Ms. Robb is correct, if you tell yourself you will remember them, you will get better and better at it.
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@Jan Regarding your comment on puns, I've had a similar dream: I was trying to climb a hill covered with litttle pigs - upon waking realized it was a reference to being 'on a slippery slope' in an area of my life.
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Although it has become increasingly rare, I'm still vexed by a version of the exam dream, missing a final so I cannot graduate. It used to affect me often and I'd wake with my heart pounding and in a sweat. Often it has taken me minutes to realize I have completed everything and graduated decades ago. An article in Psychology Today years ago assured me it was a very normal dream and I had a good laugh. Still, it happens occasionally. I think I'm going to start writing my dreams down right after waking. Thanks for an excellent article.
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Like most theories, this one is oversimplification of the phenomena. Not surprising, because dreams result from the same human need--to find, create, and massage whatever meaning it's possible to attain in the absurd relationship between human mind and reality. The author leaves out the POSITIVE dreams--the ones that affirm we CAN find order, particularly in our visceral, physical relationship to the universe. No dream is more affirming in this way than flying. It's just too bad that, most nights, we can't force enough order out of our daily struggles to take off in our dreams.
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Reality: in college I took a course on the European middle ages. The finals essay was to discuss significant institutions. I'd just done a term paper on towns, so I wrote about towns. As I left the exam one word occurred to me that had gone unmentioned in my essay: feudalism. 50 years on I look at it as just the way life goes sometimes.
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This article illustrates why psychology is not a science. The writer picks the explanations that support her thesis: That dreams cause success. Another explanation: Students who dream about exams are already better students, the dreams and the success as a student have the same cause.
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@CBH
Except she’s not offering it as scientific research, but rather as food for thought.
I find it amusing how men are so cocksure in their put downs, most of which are, when deconstructed like this one, FAILS!
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A most fascinating and important subject. But how can you write about dreams without mentioning Freud—the first psychiatrist to unlock the hidden meaning in they unconscious. While not a professor, I have experienced years of psychoanalysis and have learned that dreams arise while we sleep because our guard is down, our conscious mind which strives to protect us from our greatest fears or deepest desires for fear we couldn’t handle them has given us a tiny window to peer into. If we look into that window carefully, it’s true we can discover that which our souls truly feel. It’s not to be dabbled in lightly by those who over simplify. I would suggest any reader to spend time reading Freud and his teachings, or at least reading those that interpret his teachings. Our dreams can reveal everything, but it isn’t always for the freight of heart. You don’t always see what you want or think you are going to see. Because yes, it’s not “Even in dreams we know who we are” it’s “Only in dreams do we truly see who we are.”
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@Jessica - Precisely my sentiment: too much about the writer, and not even a scintilla of a nod to Freud. Online citations of well-researched and better written pieces abound. The piece smacks of an infomercial for her book.
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@Jessica Agree completely. And also look into Carl Jung, who developed Freud's thinking more broadly (e.g., not as sexually-focused) and in ways that speak to currently-popular "Eastern" spiritual traditions (Buddhism, Taoism, etc.). In a nutshell, every character is your dream is an aspect of yourself. The dream can be interpreted as a "psychodrama" in which aspects of one's personality that are unresolved in your waking, conscious world are played out.
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@MLippitz "every character in your dream is an aspect of yourself?" I doubt this is true for '"every character," as we gain insight in our dreams for our own purposes, but can sometimes figure out the motives of others when we "see them" in our dreams.
I have all the standard tropes in my dreams - nearly all anxiety types, but what I can’t understand is why the details and even the broad outlines disappear so quickly upon waking.
Sometimes I have a really unusual dream with interesting aspects I would like to share or even just be able to recall later.
I nearly always fail and a few hours later or less the dream has completely faded away in spite of any mental notes I made about remembering it.
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@Nancy
try physically writing down some notes just before you really wake up.
@Nancy I'm guessing you are getting on in age. I used to remember dreams vividly -- even, on occasion, being unable to disconnect from a dream on awakening. Now, at age 80, I wake knowing -- with absolute certainty -- that I'd just had an interesting and complex dream -- and it's gone! Not fair!
I do remember -- from 40 years ago -- having an occasional dream that was so entertaining, I literally woke up laughing. Explain that to your partner, particularly why the story you can relate, in the dawn light, really isn't all that funny.
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"Because dreams rarely make literal sense, it can be easier to dismiss them than to try to interpret them."
Sometimes their sense is clear, but they are extremely painful. Revisiting that haunting pain is not good.
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Gosh, pioneering modern 21st Century neuroscientists are finally starting to make timid guesses in the analysis of dreams, which was fully developed by Freud 100 years ago.
It's fashionable to make fun of Freud as being unscientific, and it's true that there's plenty to pick on in his life story. And he said a lot of absurd things about women. But he was a smart guy, and we ignore him at our peril.
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@Brian Harvey
The trouble with looking to Freud for understanding dreams (and other psychological factors as well) is that it ignores the concept of biological continuity. Other animals dream, and other animals also have many of the same psychological characteristics of humans. But Freud's approach relies on explanatory elements that seem exclusively human.
Other animals dream. Rats, for example, seem to rerun in their dreams the mazes they encountered during their waking hours. Any coherent theory of dreaming would have to include other animals as well.
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@Brian Harvey - Not to mention, Carl Jung, who wrote volumes on the “dark side” too many of us ignore until we are middle-aged. In that case, not all “darkness” is sinister or macabre but merely the other side of the brain and soul making itself known. Witness: lawyers who chuck it all in midlife to become chefs; venture capitalists who become social workers (true, I swear!), nuns who leave the convent to marry someone they suddenly “fell” in love with.
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@Chuck in tAhe Adirondacks
As a skeptic of dream meaning and analysis (there is no evidence that Freud or his followers in dream analysis ever helped a patient except through supportive therapy and reassurance), I wonder how the statement that rats return in their dreams to mazes? We cannot know in our dreams, those of speanking sentient creatures, what they mean nor recover them. To say a researcher knows that a rat has return to a maze problem in its dreams is ludicrous, at best.
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I remember vividly a nightmare from when I was nine years old, and I still remember waking up from it, the fear, calling out to my parents, and being comforted. It was during a stressful time; the dream was an exaggerated version of things that I found troubling in that period of life.
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"We’re taught that talking about our dreams is juvenile, self-indulgent, and that we should shake off their traces and get on with our day."
Really? Who is this "we" you speak of because I haven't ever been taught or heard any of those things.
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Based on this article, I assume Ms. Robb's book will be classified under "fiction."
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@MEM She's not going to care one whit as long as you buy it.
People that think about dreams, their own and those of others, and people that study dreams frequently have differing theories about them. I think they will always be largely mysterious but at the same time it seems they are always greatly useful to ponder.
Just taking the effort to remember them and think about them is therapeutic. It is an exercise in self-awareness and I believe the discipline of dream work makes for better people and better society.
Considering dreams trite, superfluous or mere mental detritus is like considering ones sense of smell or hearing useless.
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@Steven G.
I think it is of value to read Sigmund Freud about dreams: He concluded that dreams are the royal road to our unconscious mental processes, those processes which our conscious minds and our emotions did not allow in our conscious minds. Freud's theory and finding about dreaming mental processes are profound, and are very important.
[Then, too, fairytales reveal unconscious anxieties. For example, my interpretation of Rumplestilskin is that that character speaks to the unconscious impotency of the female character's father, the father who, in effect, "sells" his daughter to the king; as well as the king who had no problem with the deal. These to characters sure have rumpled phalluses which remain limp.]
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For me, dreams are the filing system of the brain. It takes the previous 24-hour activities and matches them with DNA/RNA stored information to 'find where the new data goes' by matching it with previous, stored data.
One of my references is 10,000 Dreams Interpreted: A Dictionary of Dreams by Gustavus Hindman Miller (first published about a hundred years ago). It explains much animal-related imagery since we humans lived more closely with animals back then.
Another great book is Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, LaBerge and Rheingold (1990). I actually learned how to use the suggestions in this book to astral project - wake up part of the 'sleeping' cognitive functions of the brain and influence the dream.
Some scientists say the brain fluids clean themselves during sleep, draining the daily fluid, and reprocessing it.
Unfortunately, many happy people don't remember their dreams for a good reason: they have a balance of their sub/unconscious self with their conscious self. There is no survival reason for their sub/unconsciousness to communicate with their conscious selves.
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I learned how to interpret dreams from my long-ago therapist and often used them in my former practice as a psychotherapist. What I learned was that the dreamer writes the script and the trick is to analyze what that script is telling us. So when my marriage dissolved, I had a nightmare never to be forgotten. I dreamt that the faces of Marx, Freud and my therapist loomed large in my dream and I woke from what was a nightmare. I had lost my moorings and hadn't yet found a new foundation on which to stand. There are a variety of dreams including the anxiety dreams about tests. You don't have to agree with this, but my therapist considered them a desire to erect a superior standard above our achievements (as adults) in order to have something to idealize. We are all in the same boat, living in a world full of anxiety and are vulnerable to hanging on to illusions until we no longer need them . I have found this idea the most useful to live by. We can all benefit from our dreams. You just need a key for interpreting them.
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@Renee Hack
I quite love this conclusion:
"We are all in the same boat, living in a world full of anxiety and are vulnerable to hanging on to illusions until we no longer need them."
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@Renee Hack
I agree with Cheryl - I loved the conclusion too; thank you for your comment Rene.
I've dealt with nightmares for three years, and this comment helped me.
@DJB Nightmares are, essentially conflicts. So for example, if you have dream about an animal attacking you in a rage, you are dreaming about your own rage. I hope you get to where you no longer have those nightmares.
The value of dreams, nightmares, while asleep?
Modern science, at least in the popular view, seems peculiarly against the view that dreams have value, in fact science seems against all forms of imagination except those which quite rigidly fit into current scientific laws, meaning science doesn't sit well with fiction literature, music, art and other realms which "play loose with the facts".
In other words, and for example, science typically stated would say nature operates by such laws that unicorns do not exist, yet ironically science has no explanation for why in a universe in which laws do not allow for unicorns to exist humans nevertheless exist and not only exist, can dream of unicorns and much else.
In short, for all advance and value of science, its view is remarkably constrictive. It has us taking as fact laws of nature which do not allow for the possibility of countless realms of which we can imagine, yet it has no explanation for how we can imagine something which transgresses the very laws of nature it tells us exist. Science typically understood leaves us with a contradiction: Father to child: Unicorns do not exist. Child: Then how come I can think of them?
Basically dreams have great value, imagination has great value, because laws of nature, "facts", are essentially just a mooring point, a ground, in which imagination bursts in every direction. The Big Bang burst into "laws of nature", but beyond those laws...that waits for greater human imagination.
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science is not opposed to imagination. however , if what is imagined cannot possibly be verified then it's not amenable to the scientific method
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@Daniel12
Great comment, that “imagination has great value.” Indeed!
My former company regarded invention as “disciplined imagination”. I would tell newbies that anything they could imagine completely, in all its specificity, they could realize (build, design, specify).
Dreams are not designs, but something is lost when these unconscious imaginations are dismissed, ignored, and unexplored.
@Daniel12 Thanks for restating the question "why is there something and not nothing?" in such a beautiful way. I agree that trying to see existence from an overly-scientific viewpoint is sterile and constricting. I would say that over reliance on scientific thought has brought us to the brink of losing the values that hold a healthy society together.
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Well, the thing about dreams is that, ultimately, their narratives mean what we decide they do, whether much or nothing.
The feeling of dreams is a lot more reflective of those we keep beneath the surface in our waking hours.
For instance, my anxiety often appears in dreams where I am in school and taking a test - although it has been years since I was. The situation of being a student is just a context for my being anxious.
On the other end of the spectrum, right after a surprise diagnosis of Celiac Disease, I was jolted awake with nightmares about gluten. No mystery there!
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Dreams have a lot of symbolic content whose purpose is to allow us to clearly face the feeling conflicts of our conscious waking life. However, symbols are used to conceal the relationship to our waking life. So, we have the unconscious working out and experiencing the value conflicts of our waking life, while at the same time disguising the conflicts symbolically in a dream. Since the symbols of the dream do correspond truthfully to our waking conflicts, working on dreams is therapeutic as it can force our conscious mind to deal with what we deny in our waking life.
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