Because learning about your brain and sleep can be fun . . .
The time it takes to understand a dream can be much longer than it takes to have it. It’s one key point when it comes to dream interpretation. Unbound by physical constraints, unlike other information transmitted through your five primary senses, dreams are more than pictures: they’re communications affecting all the senses. You’re making a…
When you call someone a “dreamer,” it’s something of an insult. Yet, when you call someone a “visionary,” that’s high praise. Why? What’s the difference? There’s not that much beyond the way the word sounds, the connotation it carries. To many people’s way of thinking, dreaming connotes pie-in-the-sky fancies. Impractical ideas. Something that doesn’t work…
Not every dream is symbolic of something, though many are. People tend to ignore dreams without symbols unless they’re an instance of deja vu where one has the feeling they’ve been somewhere or done something before. Dream journalers tend to talk about dreams with symbols more often. They’re more interesting because we learn from those dreams. They…
One can have all kinds of sex dreams. In your dreams, you might have sex with people you wouldn’t consider in real life. Multiple partners may show up. The dreams could feature people of the same sex, homeless people, powerful people, strangers, children, machines, objects, anyone, and anything. In dreams, after all, anything is possible.…
Recently, over a couple of weeks, more than half of the dreams one man who kept a dream journal featured the coronavirus in some way. He wasn’t alone. Lots of people around the world were dreaming about COVID-19. In his dreams, close friends were dying of the virus. Or he was lost back in 1918,…
If you think every dream you journal will be profound, surprising, or funny, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Here’s a little acknowledged secret: Some dreams are boring. The themes of some dreams are so dull, so mind-numbingly obvious, they’re like training produced by the human resources department at a large company. They’re reminders more than anything…
Weaknesses in plans, single points of failure, can become evident in dreams. Have your heart set on going to a particular college? Maybe you want to apply to more than one anyway, just so you don’t miss a year of school if you’re not accepted at your main college. Settling in a romantic relationship for…
Too bad there’s no Duolingo or Babbel to help you speak and understand the symbolic language of dreams. Does this mean that you’re going to have to learn some other way to interpret your dreams? Not hardly. The adage says, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” That becomes a whole lot of words when…
In Islamic dream interpretation, the importance of “true” dreams was first promulgated in the 7th century by Muhammad, the prophet and founder of the faith. Muhammad believed dreams were important. This was because after he was gone further prophecy would only be revealed in dreams. The process and tradition of Islamic dream interpretation were later…
Dream interpretation used in this way comes in somewhere at the intersection of art and science like so many other things. It’s building on the work of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Fritz Perls, and others on what we know about how the brain functions. The art comes in applying the symbols you remember from your dreams to your life and your questions.
If you have a dream about snakes, it’s important to pay attention to how they presented themselves. Were they slithering and creepy? Was there just one snake or more than one? Did it seem wise? Did it tempt you? Were they twisting and moving along the ground? Did you come upon them suddenly? Was there…
Informally analyzing other people’s dreams is a whole lot like analyzing their handwriting or telling them about their personality by looking at their palm. It’s not science. None of the assumptions can be tested and they take a lot of leaps in logic. Don’t take it too seriously. Keep it fun. Take inspiration from other…
The subconscious has been known to pick up certain signals and hints the conscious mind misses. For example, when you meet someone and there’s something incongruous about what they say and the way they behave. That incongruity leads you to not trust them. Being in touch with your subconscious can help you zero in on the reasons for this feeling. It can even save your life.