Apparently I decided to go with a post on dreams. I have been writing down my dreams for the past week or so, and have noticed that I dream much more that I thought I did. Or perhaps just that I remember them more now that I know I am going to be writing them down. Whichever.
Before I get into the dreams, I have another idea for some posts. I am very interested in the markets, and I am reminded of a magazine that I read in the mid-90's. It was called POV; it was in the vein of Maxim but predates it; and closer to GQ than Maxim, but not so juvenile. They had one particular feature I liked a lot, called "Your $10,000 portfolio". I liked this one because it seemed to me that most people in the target audience probably did have, or could reasonably have, a $10,000 portfolio. The audience was the 20-30 urban / suburban male. So I am going to design a few of these portfolios and publish the results here. Different focuses, different goals, different types. And I just had another idea for a future column: living with parents for extended periods after school is finished. But back to the dreams.
Dreams have deep meaning: Dreams are a window into our soul. They reflect our innermost desires, fears, hopes. It is only because we don't know how to interpret them that their true meaning is lost. This is why psychologists study dreams - because it is such an important part of our psyche.
This is also why virtually every culture holds dreams in very high spiritual regard. Because they have meaning that help understand who we are as people; what changes to make in our lives; how to make these changes; and breaks the barrier between our subconscious and conscious.
Dreams have had an effect on many people; history is full of examples of people who had dreams that warned them, inspired them; revealed the future and the past to them. While dreams may not be a real crystal ball, they have unquestioned power and relevance in most people's lives.
Dreams are only what we make of them. Dreams are simply random thoughts that bounce around in our heads, and when we sleep, because we have no control over our thoughts, these random thoughts come out. This is why dreams usually make no sense - there is no conscious process to organize our thoughts and make them interpretable.
Dreams have no meaning; it's only when people think about dreams in their conscious state that they ascribe meaning to snippets of information. When people "sleep on it" and have a dream about how to solve a problem, it is the conscious mind that determines the solution - not the unconscious dream mind. That we give meanings to dreams merely indicates that we don't want to take credit or blame for not recognizing the solution early.
90% of the time, your dream will be about whatever you were thinking about before you fell asleep. And most dreams aren't even remembered; so that's a pretty inefficient method of bridge the consciousness gap. The other 10 percent of dreams is made up of stock dreams like falling and going to school naked, and nonsensical dreams that seem more appropriate in a Dr. Seuss book.
What I think: I think that most dreams are meaningless, and just a reflection of your more recent thoughts. Something akin to a daily data dump. That said, I certainly do not doubt the cultural and sometimes personal meanings and significance of dreams. And because of the constant repetition of types of dreams and dream archetypes, the concept of collective unconscious is reinforced.
How I relate: I have personally had a few dreams that have helped clarify some things, but nothing earth-shattering. No Eurekas or a-ha's, but a few hmmms. But I tend to doubt people who tell me that, after the fact, they had a premonition dream. A dream about a fire and then a building burning down in the next few weeks is far to broad and reeks of someone just trying to make themselves feel important.
So that's a good start. It's an interesting topic; I don't think I can explore it much more. I will continue to write down my dreams, and if I got really excited I would post them. But not here - somewhere in a different blog. If I had one. Which I don't.
An aside; when I was looking for pictures to post on this blog, pictures of people sleeping are mostly women or children. Men don't sleep, I guess.
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