Tags
author, dream, dreaming, dreams, life, meaning, omens, portents, Science, Stephanie Beavers, writer
Dreams. No one really knows why we dream, but everyone has an opinion. Do they mean something or are they just garbage our brain is trying to process and throw out?
Here’s a nice summary of scientific thought on dreams:
Honestly, I’ve always thought dreams are more like garbage. I rarely remember my dreams, and when I do, they’re incoherent and nonsensical. And yet… every so often I’ll have a dream that I find myself wanting to attribute meaning to. Friday night I had a dream that I packed a bunch of stuff into my Jeep (including my cat) and drove off. I wound up visiting some relatives on their farm as my first stop to driving across the US.
Now where did that come from? I have a little turbulence in my life right now (some good, some less good), but I haven’t been giving holiday or travel (or even running away) any kind of thought lately. And yet the feeling of wanting to move, to just pick up and go, stuck with me powerfully for a few hours after waking up. I found myself wondering what it meant.
Why do we do that? Why do we try to attribute meaning to dreams? As I mentioned before, most of my other dreams are “dead flies and bits of fluff,” garbage that my brain is filtering out and throwing away.
And of course, not everyone shares my “garbage” view of dreams. Historically speaking, all kinds of meaning has been ascribed to dreams across all kinds of cultures (think oracles and prophets especially). Is this just a sign of human beings desperately trying to make sense of the world around us?
What do you think, readers? Have you had any (or many) dreams that you’ve sought or found meaning in? Do you think dreams are meaningful? Share your thoughts!
Stephanie Beavers 
Hmm. I love figuring out dreams, though not in a fantastical or prophesying sort of way. I have recurring dreams of traveling where I am walking, on a bus, on a plane, on a spaceship (aw yeah), and so on. I am always staying in a hotel or sleeping in a tent or in a strange place. Last night I had that dream again where I was walking along a highway in the dark. My other recurring dream is being in a house where there are endless floors or secret passages (which I have dubbed “maze of self”). In short, I think dreams are your subconscious trying to make sense of things you don’t understand about yourself… or dreams are there to express all the things you want to do in an annoying metaphorical way!
LikeLike
Evidently your dreams are more coherent than mine! I don’t remember much of most of mine… I just remember how I felt about them in the few moments after I woke up when I DID remember them, and that’s usually along the lines of “WTF was that all about?”
LikeLike