to Tony, a long response is excepted

[billy the kid]

So Tony the people in my department look at your posts on a regular basis, most all aggree with all of your posts.. So they asked me to ask you a question, so what is your take on Dreams?? bad, good, sexual, violent, romantic, wet, dry... so, money is riding on this so let us read your best..take your time, you do not have to answer right away...

[The Truth]

I work nights, and so I have a good opporunity to jump on this one before Tony gets to it!

 

Dreams....ahh a very tough subject. I think the meaning each of us gives to dreams is directly related to our other ideologies. That is, a Christian would likely interpret dreams as a message from God or angels or devils.....whatever.

 

For the record, the content of dreams is directly linked wth the ultimate question. The question science, philosophy, psychology, and even religion have not yet even come close to answering. That is the question of consciousness. The greatest neorolgists in the world can describe, in extraordinary detail, the workings of the human BRAIN. However, not one of them can tell you how consciousness is produced. We just don't know. When it comes to dreams, we are, unfortunately in the same boat.

 

This question goes backs to the Greeks. To date, I think the most widely accepted explanations of dreams are those of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.

 

They maintain, I think, that in general we are not privy of our subconscious mind. That is, the part of our mind that is paramount in determining behavior, addicion, and motivation.

 

However, for whatever reason, when we dream, it is actually our subconscious mind manifesting in different forms and hence revealing issues that we may not be aware of. By issues I mean deep seated scars, desires, or problems, that our conscious minds have repressed......they vent in our dreams....we reveal our true natures in our dreams..

 

I think in psychiatry, physicians use the above theory to try to identify the roots of various mental illness. Once they do, the problems are addressed on the conscious level, which, in theory will heal the subconscious mind and the problem will cease.

 

Everybody and their cousin has a theory about dreams.....what I've given is my best summary of what I believe the scientific take is.

 

I heard a quote one time, some Zen monk or something

 

" We are more curious about the meaning of dreams than things we see when awake "

[Tony T]

I am assuming you are talking about the dreams we have at night, while asleep, rather than the ones we have during waking hours about our future.

 

Dreams are not bad, good, sexual, violent, romantic, wet, dry, or whatever...they are just there...ramblings of the brain, parts of which continue to be active when other parts are shut down. Hopefully, the parts that handle our heartbeat, digestion and other autonomic functions hang in there as well.

 

The human body is an organisma controlled by the brain. Part of the brain, most probably the limbic system, stores up materials from our evolved past and merges them with activities of this life and creates wild story telling sessions at night to pass the time. These story telling sessions, some our greatest dreams, some our wildest nightmares, some totally irrelvant to our lives except in possible metaphor, and some so wild as to serve as only entertainment begin and end during certain parts of our sleep cycle, according to researchers. I personally don't think they are sure.

 

I am also not convinced that our dreams are worth analyzing. Dream interpretation is a subjective and inexact science. The psychologist or interpretor usually tries to tie in the events of the dream with the patients past or current life status. That is NOT scientific. Interpreting dreams would be about the same as interpreting events that occur during waking hours...we ate because we were hungry...we crossed the road to get to the other side.

 

Some dreams may have more meaning than others. We probably forget most of what we dream because we forget most of what we do when we are awake. Our random access memory is just so big. There is only so much we can keep in awareness at one time...and only so much of our lives that we can recall, even if we try.

 

I like to look at dreams as entertainment. Even nightmares are entertaining. How many people pay for roller coaster rides or horror movies to get the wits scared out of them. Dreams are free entertainment, often with ourselves in a lead or supporting role, that we get for free. Dreams are something to do when we aren't awake to do anything.

 

Because interpretation of them is so subjective, I really don't think they are of significant use beyond just enjoying and relating to other people. Frankly, between you and me, the most bored I get in life is when people start telling me about the dreams they had the night before, even if I was in them. Who cares?

 

Now, there are cases where people have dreams of precognition...or claim to. Some dream of correct lottery numbers, some of accidents to come, some of the sex of a child, and many other events. Some of those people probably make up that stuff after the facts, others could have just gotten very lucky to have randomly dreamed about an event that would take place. If people can pick winning lottery numbers or fear an accident during waking hours, they can do so in a dream...same person, same brain, just asleep instead of awake. When people say a dream became reality, there may be some metaphysical reason for that...but more dreams don't eventually take place. We may never know the actual facts about this.

 

Dreams can definitely be linked to a physical part of the brain because people on antidepressants and other medications seem to have more lengthy and more active dreams. Some people who almost never remember dreams come alive at night when placed on those medications. Other medications, such as beta blockers, have a tendency to supress the recollection of dreams. That's why I don't think dreams are some sort of magical subconscious thing...because they are brought on or suppressed by the chemical composition of the physical brain.

 

So enjoy them. If you can apply them to helping you some way in your life, go for it. If you can even remember them, you are doing good.

 

Enjoy your dreams. You take a lot of the joy out of having them when you start trying to analyze them...just like you can take much of the joy out of life if you analyze it too much.

 

I will say that a lot of the posts on this forum are more in the category of nightmares.