Dream Interpretation?

wayfarer

Does anybody have any thoughts on the subject (from a scientific pov). Is any relationship between what you dream about and what is going on in your life or is it totally arbitrary?

Im completely ignorant on the subject and have been having some pretty surreal dreams of late so I was wondering if they really do mean something.

ApeXaviour

From my limited knowledge (john2 is better equipped I'd say): dreams are caused by random firings in your brain. How you interpret these makes the dreams. Hence how personal they can be.
It's purely your subconscious interpreting which lacks any form of critical interpretation or basic logic. Hence the surreality.

Interpretation IMO, if taken from a strict psychological observation (as opposed to astrological, clairvoyent or any other nonsense) has significance. Though how much I'm not sure. I'd reckon often there are too many personal factors involved in them to make an adequately accurate interpretation. Like predicting the weather, butterfly effect and all that. Plus there is the randomness aspect.

snorlax

Freud would say that dreams are our uncounsious desires and are formed form the unconsious mind.

Freud's basic insight that our minds preserve memories and emotions which are not always consciously available to us has transformed the way humanity views itself ever since. Freud said that there had been three great humiliations in human history: Galileo's discovery that we were not the center of the universe, Darwin's discovery that we were not the crown of creation, and his own discovery that we are not in control of our own minds. The tendency of modern people to trace their problems to childhood traumas or other repressed emotions begins with Freud. One of Freud's more important discoveries is that emotions buried in the unconscious surface in disguised form during dreaming, and that the remembered fragments of dreams can help uncover the buried feelings. Whether the mechanism is exactly as Freud describes it, many people have derived insights into themselves from studying their dreams, and most modern people consider dreams emotionally significant, unlike our ancestors who often saw them either as divine portents or as the bizarre side-effects of indigestion. Freud argues that dreams are wish-fulfillments, and will ultimately argue that those wishes are the result of repressed or frustrated sexual desires. The anxiety surrounding these desires turns some dreams into nightmares

John

I haven't a clue about dreams. As usual I don't believe Freud's theory at all (sorry Snorlax ). I think that dreams are some sort of filing system within the brain, breaking down your memories and packing them up for later use, I don't think there's much to interpret. It's like poetry, anyone's view of dream imagery is entirely subjective.

Of course I think a bigger mystery is why do we sleep, I think by answering that we'll be able to figure out where dreams fit in.

Hagar

I dreamt about someone last night and in the dream they were half kangaroo just like that kids program with the mutant kangaroos. I don't normally attach much importance to things like this but last night myself and the wife were talking about this guy and the phrase "short arms and deep pockets" (he's a tight bastard) were used to describe him. A kangaroo is an accurate visualization of the idea. It's funny the way the brain works.

snorlax

the funny thing about dreams is that apparently males and females dream about different things, freud's theory might have some basis if you think about men having wet dreams when they're younger, probably fantazising over some woman!

men apparently apparently dream about power, achievement, money,women and women mainly about relationships.

John

snorlax wrote:

the funny thing about dreams is that apparently males and females dream about different things, freud's theory might have some basis if you think about men having wet dreams when they're younger, probably fantazising over some woman!

men apparently apparently dream about power, achievement, money,women and women mainly about relationships.

It could be due to what they think about normally though. I wonder is there any cultural differences to dreams (apart from the details like what language the person dreams in or what the people look like in the dream)

snorlax

i'd say the environment must be linked to what you dream about eg sometimes you may dream about something that happened that day, or something your worried about. often though it gets distorted eg you could have a dream your in the middle of an exam you haven't prepared for, if you we're anxious about an impending exam from the previous day and we're thinking about it alot.

id say access to the television may also have a big role to play in what we dream about.

Myksyk

Regarding sleep, there's a good book called 'Sleep Thieves' by Stanley Coren which is aimed at a general audience. Worth a read (though may be a little out of date by now).

Feownah

Anybody ever wake up laughing because they are dreaming something completely absurd and ridiculous- it happens me quite a lot! The reason I think we forget our dreams so quickly, thats if we can remember them at all, is because if we spent too much time thinking about the MEANING in them we'd go crazy or in my case i'd be laughing all the time.

Yeah i think that basically dreaming is a de-stressing system- it goes hand in hand with the sayings 'sleep on it...it''ll be better in the morning', your brain is sorting through a mish mosh of things that make you happy, that make you anxious, that shock you, that are new to you. I must admit i've also had dreams where I wake up crying after having an unsettling dream and have been left concerned and questioning the meaning. But overall I dont think we should consume our time and energy trying to interpret them because it is the dreams that are trying to interpret and sort out our lives for us , usually in a strange way, so we should just let them try to de stress us instead of stressing over them.

Who agrees with Freud and his oedipus complex the sick fecker!

pbsuxok1znja4r

Who agrees with Freud and his oedipus complex the sick fecker!

THat is but one Freud. There are many more. He is polymorphously pertinent.

Feownah

scouser.tommy wrote:

THat is but one Freud. There are many more. He is polymorphously pertinent.

Ah could you not just say he that he is on many levels quite relevant

AppleBack

In most of my dreams I'm always running and hiding from someone or something

Neesha

I feel sometimes that I'm actually controlling my dream and if I don't like it I just make up something else...

snorlax

Appleback maybe your subconsiously afraid or guilty about something?

i used to be chased by a lion when i was younger, the lion was very smart and could climb through trapdoors and run as fast as a car on the motorway! then i used to get recurrent nightmares about my dog getting lost in an area near where i live, i just saw the squeeky toys he used to play with in a field. strangely he actually did go missing and we never found him again (he was quite old). twas probably my subconsious fears causing the nightmares because he was quite old at the time.

then recently i saw an episode of niptuck which was pretty gruesome and involved a decapitated head. i saw the same head in a nightmare i had that night. so he environment definetly has an influence on what we dream about.

susanlr

I'm just starting to read Freud's interpretation of dreams now...and I'm going into it with some sort of caution.

This is because I usually can work out why I dreamed about something...like for instance if someone is metioned during the day...I might dream of a place I had visited with them once, or of a person who reminds me of them. Not necessarily of the exact thing that was mentioned during the day but of something that has some sort of connection to it.

That said, I can see where dreams can represent things. As I suppose it is my unconscious that sorts through the day and decides what it is I will dream about. And how I will drea, about them.

Youre right about tv having influence, I have often woken early in the morning being able to 'predict' the days news...where actually the tv has just put me to sleep and I've heard the headlines on sky before drifting into a deep sleep without knowing.

I find all this very interesting. Dreams are definitely our way of filing and sorting and I am not sure how much I can agree with symbols meaning a certain thing to everyone, even if they are indiviually looked at by the analyst. I've never had a case of a rebus in a dream...well, i suppose how could I know, but I've never noticed anything to be so hard to understand that i can't work it out for myself.

Anyway, its super late...and at this rate I'll be dreamin of a computer screen chasing me down a dark alley!!!

Goodnight...looking forward to hear other's views!

Eoghan-psych

[DISCLAIMER: The following may be complete and utter nonsense. You have been warned.]

One must be clear when talking about this area - the interpretation of *dreams* is clearly impossible. Dreaming happens while we are unconscious, so we have no way to actually verify things.

What is *actually* being discussed is people's *memory* for their dreams. Now, we know this is imperfect [given the time spent dreaming and the amount of dream recalled], so that's a starting point.

To me, the interesting thing is *pattern* across time - do people's recollections of dreams vary across time? I would think [this is not empirically based, just thinking out loud] that what people *remember* about their dreams would be related to their current situation. If they are under a lot of stress, they might be primed to remember stressful or traumatic aspects of their dream. When that stress is removed, they might be primed to report other aspects.

I don't buy the whole 'subconscious' malarky, or any of that "dream dictionary" rubbish, even for a second.

Goodshape

Eoghan-psych wrote:

What is *actually* being discussed is people's *memory* for their dreams. Now, we know this is imperfect [given the time spent dreaming and the amount of dream recalled], so that's a starting point.

I agree with that. I also think that what you remember about them - and why you remember those things - can be significant.

When you wake, your mind paints a picture around these fantastic events (the dream itself) using your predefined map, or idea, of what is real (constructed from memories, both active and passive). As such, the resulting 'dream' or your memory of the dream can only really have meaning for you.

I wouldn't put too much actual faith in other peoples interpretation of my dreams (in person, in books, on the web, etc.), but if I'm looking for a meaning myself I usually don't see any harm in consulting them. It can still help by reminding you of 'common-knowledge' (or passive) memories that you may have consciously forgotten about.

-- eg, pretty much anyone in the world will be able to identify a chair, or a kitchen table, and tell you what it's for (passive memory) but only you will know what meeting your old friend in town yeasterday afternoon was like (active memory).

It can also be interesting to hear other peoples ideas asto what different things mean to us.


As for what dreams actually are (apart from really interesting and good fun), I don't know. I like the idea of that "whole 'subconscious' malarky", but random fireings in the brain seems plausable too. I'd like to know how lucid dreaming fits into that theory actually.