dream meanings

I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke.
Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man? . . Chuang Tzu

I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke.
Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man? . . Chuang Tzu

We typically spend over 2 hours dreaming each night as our neural networks play though unfinished business, solve problems and reset ready for the next day.

Our subconscious world emerges in dreams, no longer obscured by the movie show run by waking consciousness as it interprets sensations from our body and environment.

Dreams are windows into our subconscious library of sensations, impressions, words, images and other symbols stored all over the brain. In the theatre of dreams we directly experience these fragments and the logic that gathers them up into stories that morph from one to the next..

Dreams weave our sensory experiences and memories into stories that make sense of our sleeping experiences just as our waking consciousness does when we experience our waking selves in the world around us. They are different kinds of pictures of our experience and one can be translated only partially into the syntax of the other.

Sigmund Freud speculated that dreams are a defence against waking. As our sleep becomes lighter on the verge of waking, the sensations of the body in the bed and the residual impressions of the day coalesce into stories that make sense of these sensations instead of stirring us to awaken.

memories
If dreams were remembered as clearly as waking experiences it would be almost impossible to distinguish waking from dreamt memories.

Our memory and musculature is turned off and we are detached from the waking world. We usually can't recall the last few minutes before falling asleep. We often do not remember conversations or alarms ringing in the middle of the night if we go straight back to sleep afterwards.

We can usually only glimpse recollections of dreams as we awaken and only remember the memories of them if we write them down or contemplate them.

symbols
Dream memories would be difficult to distinguish from waking memories if they had the same content and visual appearance. Dreams are usually not like real life but analogues that symbolise awake experiences.

The core subject of a dream is usually around an incident or a related memory from the day before the previous day or a very striking event from the previous day.

We can reconstruct dreams from the fragments that come to mind as we awaken. Each fragment may represent many different ideas, memories and feelings all at once. When we examine them closely it can be difficult to be sure who was in a dream, what they were like, whether they were this person or that or if they were a sensation rather than a person after all.

A dream represents a real life situation using dream symbols instead of actual people, things and events. Each person, event or object in a dream usually is an aspect of ourselves. What the dream is talking about can be found by relaxing and noticing what comes to mind when we dwell on each fragment. These associations are clues to what the dream images represent and how we came to be dreaming them.

childhood dreaming
To find and explore your core life strategy established in childhood recall a nightmare or re-current dream from childhood. What was the feeling in the dream? When was the earliest time you remember that feeling in waking life? What waking situation does that remind you of now? When do you have that feeling now?

Or .. how would you symbolise that dream in a picture? How does that picture represent your life now?

copyright (C) John Brasted 2008
updated 06/11/11

We typically spend over 2 hours dreaming each night as our neural networks play though unfinished business, solve problems and reset ready for the next day.

Our subconscious world emerges in dreams, no longer obscured by the movie show run by waking consciousness as it interprets sensations from our body and environment.

Dreams are windows into our subconscious library of sensations, impressions, words, images and other symbols stored all over the brain. In the theatre of dreams we directly experience these fragments and the logic that gathers them up into stories that morph from one to the next..

Dreams weave our sensory experiences and memories into stories that make sense of our sleeping experiences just as our waking consciousness does when we experience our waking selves in the world around us. They are different kinds of pictures of our experience and one can be translated only partially into the syntax of the other.

Sigmund Freud speculated that dreams are a defence against waking. As our sleep becomes lighter on the verge of waking, the sensations of the body in the bed and the residual impressions of the day coalesce into stories that make sense of these sensations instead of stirring us to awaken.

memories
If dreams were remembered as clearly as waking experiences it would be almost impossible to distinguish waking from dreamt memories.

Our memory and musculature is turned off and we are detached from the waking world. We usually can't recall the last few minutes before falling asleep. We often do not remember conversations or alarms ringing in the middle of the night if we go straight back to sleep afterwards.

We can usually only glimpse recollections of dreams as we awaken and only remember the memories of them if we write them down or contemplate them.

symbols
Dream memories would be difficult to distinguish from waking memories if they had the same content and visual appearance. Dreams are usually not like real life but analogues that symbolise awake experiences.

The core subject of a dream is usually around an incident or a related memory from the day before the previous day or a very striking event from the previous day.

We can reconstruct dreams from the fragments that come to mind as we awaken. Each fragment may represent many different ideas, memories and feelings all at once. When we examine them closely it can be difficult to be sure who was in a dream, what they were like, whether they were this person or that or if they were a sensation rather than a person after all.

A dream represents a real life situation using dream symbols instead of actual people, things and events. Each person, event or object in a dream usually is an aspect of ourselves. What the dream is talking about can be found by relaxing and noticing what comes to mind when we dwell on each fragment. These associations are clues to what the dream images represent and how we came to be dreaming them.

childhood dreaming
To find and explore your core life strategy established in childhood recall a nightmare or re-current dream from childhood. What was the feeling in the dream? When was the earliest time you remember that feeling in waking life? What waking situation does that remind you of now? When do you have that feeling now?

Or .. how would you symbolise that dream in a picture? How does that picture represent your life now?

copyright (C) John Brasted 2008

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