What Do Dreams Mean?

Dreams are a series of imaginary experiences based on images, ideas, emotions and sensations that we are subject to during regular sleeping patterns. There are many theories as to why we dream, and for centuries many people have tried to attach meaning and interpretations to their experiences. Here a few theories as to why we dream:

Bad dreams allow us to control emotions in the 'real' world
Dreams regulate moods
Dreams help us to 'make connections in a safe place'

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world."
Oscar Wilde

Famous psychologist Sigmund Freud hypothesis suggested the bad dreams might help us to control emotions in the 'real' world. That is to say our brains in the real world can better compute the emotions we experience in our dreams, perhaps an experience of fear whilst being chased by a monster in a nightmare. This could in theory help us when we come up against a threat in the real world, as we have already experienced a similar situation, albeit in an imaginary scenario.

This links in to the point about how 'a dream allows us to make connections in a safe place'. In the same way that dreams can help us to learn about emotions in order to deal with them better in real life, so the same can be said for other physical tasks, from out of the ordinary actions you may need to perform in order to achieve something, or the most everyday of mundane tasks. Think of it sort of like a mental practice regime.

Keeping your thoughts balanced

Dreams are also thought to provide some sort of mood regulation for us while we are sleeping. For example, if you were to fall asleep whilst in a negative mindset, you are more likely to have dreams about something positive, and therefore wake up feeling better, as your mind tries to balance itself emotionally. Perhaps this is why so many people 'sleep on it' before dealing with emotional stress or great changes in their life. It
can easily be explained; if you think to your waking life, when feelings down you usually try to cheer yourself up by thinking positive thoughts. Well, the exact same happens while sleeping, albeit subconsciously.

For hundreds of years, people of various cultures have tried to attach meaning to their dreams, in the hope of finding out something about their inner workings, or perhaps to try to predict future events.

Historically, dreams were used for healing in ancient cultures such as Ancient Greece, guidance, or divine inspiration. A few native American tribes used dreaming as part of their 'vision quests', whereby they would pray and fast for large periods of time until a 'guiding dream' occurred to them, which they would report back to the tribe on their return.

In the late 19th late and early 20th centuries, Freud and Carl Jung indentified dreams as an interaction between the conscious and the unconscious, asserting that the unconscious was the dominant force behind dreaming. Jung argued that the bizarre nature of dreams was their efficient language, comparable to poetry and communicating to the perceiver projections f their mental self, such as parts of the mind that have been ignored, rejected or suppressed.

"And When I woke, I cried to Dream again" Caliban - The Tempest by William Shakespeare.

Jung hypothesized that every person present in a dream could be seen to represent an aspect of the dreamer, representative of the subjective approach to dreams. Ie: If you see a child in your dream, this child is the innocent part of you, or your 'inner child', and an adult would be yourFritz Perls took things a step further by arguing that even inanimate objects could be looked at in this way too. This has brought about a huge interest in finding out what these particular things may mean in a dream world, or dream interpretation.

There are far too many things that could be said about what various objects in people mean to talk about here. Everything from dreaming your in a dance recital meaning your moving into a new phase in your life, to seeing a quail to mean lust or eroticism, the theories are wide and sometimes humorously strange.

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Anonymous 70% helpful

Your subconscious is actually responsible for most of your dreams, so things that you push to the back of your mind resurface in your dreams while you sleep. Most of your dreams are also not necessarily literal, so dreaming of an ex-lover or boyfriend doesn't mean you like him or you're thinking about him, it could mean you enjoyed an intimacy with that person that you want to relive, but not necessarily with him (he's just a trigger for that emotion). It could also suggest you have concerns about your past and what effect it has or might have on your current situation, and these type of dreams (distressing or unwanted ones) are usually your mind's way of coping with and sorting out all your thoughts and emotions. Sleep serves to placate the mind and replenish the body. And if it makes you feel any better, I dream of my ex too and I'm completely in love with my current lover (We're engaged). You might also want to keep in mind that specific things or occurences in dreams are symbolic or representative of a general idea or emotion and taking a step back to evaluate the possible meanings in terms of where you're at in life and how you feel about it is the best idea, this approach can help you understand what your dreams are telling you about yourself and how you feel.

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Rhuen Farquharson 70% helpful

One of the scariest dream is to dream that you are falling from a very high place. A dream like this normally makes people jump out of there sleep and sometimes even yell for help until they realize that it's just a dream. Now when someone has a dream like this and wakes up finding out that it is just a dream, just imagine how good he or she feels to know that he or she is still alive. This is one good way that the mind can help to relieve the body of stress. This also show how powerful our thoughts can be.

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Anonymous 70% helpful

Dreams are repressed feelings that are stored in the subconscious mind. Dreams are a medium to give free-will to your subconscious mind. The subconscious contorts, distorts, tries to seek answers to problems, and seeks the positive-negative repercussions of an event or problem. Dreams in our sleep mean one thing: The body may be resting but the mind keeps on working. Dreams tell us in a camouflaged form of things that we do not pay heed to in reality. The Bible talks about King Nebuchnezzar's dream which was interpreted by Daniel in the royal court. The dream was recorded as Daniel's prophecy of the end times.

A dream can even give you a way to solve a problem. No wonder, people say 'why not sleep on it.'

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Anonymous 69% helpful

No one can categorically state what dreams may or may not represent. We can only ever guess and surmise. Freud argued that when we dream, we only ever dream of ourselves. Dreams combine the ego, id and super id, all crying for attention, all expressing themselves and their needs.
Using this theory, if a man has a dream about a sick child who is female, this could mean that his 'feminine' side is not well and needs to be taken care of and nursed back to health.
Many refute Freud's argument however and feel that it is more likely that the dreams are the voice of the sub-conscious coming through. For example, a very troubled and worried woman is facing a major problem in her life. She dreams that she is on a flight. Something happens to the pilot and she has to fly the plane. She has never flown an aircraft before, but manages to do it. This could be the subconscious mind telling the conscious mind that whatever the problem is, she is strong enough to cope.
Another theory is that dreams are just the brains way of sorting out experiences or things that have happened during the day and actually mean nothing.

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Arun Vignesh 62% helpful

Our dreams combine verbal, visual and emotional stimuli into a sometimes broken, nonsensical but often entertaining story line. We can sometimes even solve problems in our sleep. Or can we? Many experts disagree on exactly what the purpose of our dreams might be. Are they strictly random brain impulses, or are our brains actually working through issues from our daily life while we sleep -- as a sort of coping mechanism? Should we even bother to interpret our dreams? Many say yes, that we have a great deal to learn from our dreams.
In this article, we'll talk about the major dream theories, from Freud's view to the hypotheses that claim we can control our dreams. We'll find out what scientists say is happening in our brains when we dream and why we have trouble remembering these night-time story lines. We'll talk about how you can try to control your dreams -- both what you're dreaming about and what you do once you're having the dream. We'll also find out what dream experts say particular scenarios signify. Finding yourself at work naked may not mean at all what you think it does!

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Anonymous 58% helpful

Sigmund Freud's seminal work about the interpretation of dreams popularized the idea of deciphering dreams. All of us dream, some of us remember our dreams with great clarity while some have no recollection whatsoever of their dreams.

Dreams have been interpreted differently in various cultures and Freud has his unique take on them. According to Freud, a bird in ones dream refers to the phallus, while Jung says that a bird is representative of a desire for freedom. When one is being chased in the dream it is an indication of the threats that he/she is facing in the present time.

Most of the experts agree that horses are a symbol of sexuality or fertility. Freud gives a sexual spin to most of the objects that one sees in dreams. He says that if someone sees a house in a dream, it is an indication of his innate desire to visit a brothel.

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