Dreaming.

Hey guys.

So, last night I had a weird dream, that really confused me, and I started wondering,

Do dreams mean anything?

I mean, in Bible times, when someone had a dream, it meant something. God was telling them something. 

But now, most people dream every night, or at least, most nights, and we don't think anything of it anymore.

I've heard some people say that the reason we dream so much now is because of television.

So, that would mean that, because we saw something on tv, it makes us dream...I don't know, but that doesn't make sense to me.

Whenever I dream, I usually dream about something I've been thinking about or doing. And yes, sometimes, if I've been watching a lot of television, I dream about the characters or something (that's why watching Walking Dead before bedtime is a bad idea).

So what makes us dream?

According to Freud, a dream is like a wish. It's the things that we want, but maybe just subconsciously want, maybe won't even admit to ourselves.

That kind of makes sense, but what about nightmares? I certainly don't want to be trapped in a world full of horrible monsters all the time, I don't want to be stuck married to someone I don't even know, I don't want to be stabbed by a syringe and almost killed, those are all nightmares I've had. I don't want any of those to ever be real.

So while sometimes I think dreams are just a way for us to live out our wishes, I don't think that's what they always are.

Some people say that dreams are practice for real life situation, like if you dreamed you were being pushed off a cliff, what would your reaction be? A scientist named Antti Revonsuo discovered that our amygdala (the part of our brain that controls our fight or flight reflexes) works more that usual during REM sleep, which is the time when we sleep.

I suppose that this theory sort of makes sense, but then why do we react is such weird ways? Why is it that you can be in the middle of solving a problem, and all of a sudden you are a million miles away, doing something else?

According to Francis Crick and Graeme Mitchison, dreams are a way of helping us forget unimportant information. According to their theory, at night, when dreaming, our brains fire kind of randomly, and while doing this, it loosens up old memories and information that we don't need anymore, making way for new information.

I don't really agree with this theory. I don't think that dreams make us forget. If that was the case, then where do all these forgotten memories and information go?

Some say that dreams are a way to deal with our emotions. We feel emotions, even in our dreams. Sometimes, during the day, we might overthink our emotions, and have a hard time putting those emotions where they belong. Like, if I had a crush on someone, and I didn't know how to deal with that, I might dream about dancing with them, or talking to them, or something like that, and that way I would be able to deal with that emotion. Then, when I wake, up, I have that feeling put more into perspective.

I agree with this theory, mostly. It doesn't explain why sometimes you can go to bed perfectly happy, and then dream that you are angry at your best friend.

The some people say that dreams don't mean anything, and that they are random images and sounds that pop into your head at night.

I think sometimes dreams are just our mind wandering through our thoughts and memories at night, just trying to relax, but not always.

My idea is that most of these theories are true at some time or another.

We all have nightmares occasionally. For me, nightmares quite often have something to do with an actual fear, like loosing someone I love.

We all have those weird, emotional dreams, like if we are angry in our dream, or if we like someone. I often wonder about those dreams. Like, sometimes, say you dream that you are talking to someone, and in your dream, you really like them. Is that your mind's way of telling you that you like that person, but you are trying your hardest not to during your waking hours, and so tricking yourself into believing it? Or are you just confused in a dream? I really don't know the answer to that one, I really wish I did.

Do dreams mean anything? Yes, I think sometimes they do. I don't think they are always foretelling the future, but I do think that most of the time, dreams mean something, if to no one else, they at least mean something to you, or about you.

Yes, I think sometimes dreams are just a nighttime ramble through your subconscious brain, where you are just enjoying the interesting, meaningless images around you.

But sometimes, especially when you feel something in your dream, I think they are telling you something about yourself. What, I don't know, each dream is as different as the people who dream them.

Cheers!