Your view on what dreams are

knowing what everyones angle on the nature of dreams seems important to me.
my opinion is that it is an entirely mind created thing. i don’t think that theres any outside forces intervening with the essence of dreams. don’t let that view smudge the wonder of dreams though. dreams are extraordinary but not supernatural. the fact that dreaming is mind related is evident, but some believe that its more, with good reason, but i think people are understandably baffled by the nature of dreams that they think these awesome occurrances can only be accounted as being supernatural.
don’t underestimate the mind though. your consciousness right now can be accounted and discussed as such also.
i don’t think theres ALWAYS symbolism in dreams. most of the time its just thinking, but i can be flexible enough to say that some of these dreams are symbolic.

whats you’re opinion?

I believe that all of my dreams are symbolic, just some much more than others. (Usually with striking accuracy as well!) I think the dreams are the way the unconscious mind communicates to you in an attempt to help you, or to help you gain insight into things. I believe that dreams are gateways to the unknown regions of the mind, and to a parallel consciousness where the body of our mind can exist while our physical body rejuvenates itself.

I think that dreams are built from behavioral patterns, memories and expectations we have in our minds. Most of the time my dreams relate
closely to my everyday life, and what I have experienced and look forward to ( or conversely dont want to happen ).

What puzzles me is how people interpret dream elements as symbols, as
most events, objects etc. have a relative component in the real world ( at least for me ).

thebullgod, while dream objects have a component of reality, they still have to be interpreted as symbols because they mean not one solud thing, but everything we know relating to the object.

To me, dreams are products of everything we have experienced, especially recently.

yes, dreams are basicly re made experiences.
the only reason their not as normal as the actual experience is because you’re brain is asleep and you’re really not dealing in logic during dreaming. a dream changes as quickly as a thought.

I have came to the conclusion that there are different kinds of dreams and they all have different purposes. The most common dreams are those that combine the other days experiences into an adventure where you are in. I think that’s how our brain compacts all the meaningful experiences we have had… These are dreams that are not worth interpreting as there’s nothing symbolical or valuable.

Then there are those really weird dreams. I think that the brain can think in a symbolic manner and the result is a dream which must be interpreted as a metaphor… This is where some religious thoughts can appear.

I have had also a couple of dreams that were sort of ‘pregognitive’ as the event I dreamed happened the next day right as I had dreamed it. Nothing big events though just some minor ones like meeting someone at the place as in a dream and saying the same words or ideas as in a dream.

And then there are dreams that can combine some or all these elements. The results are mostly so bizarre that I don’t even want to analyse them. But in my case the meaningful part is usually found at the end of the dream. The beginning is just compacted memories but at the end there are some symbolic elements and the real wisdom can be found. Like last night at the end of the dream when I looked at the painting my friend had done. It was a beautiful ocean view and the friend said that it’s idea was that “where-ever you go there’s a vast ocean of possibilities.” I think that’s something to think of.

So to conclude; I think there are more than one types of dreams which must be learned to recognize and then say whether it has any meaning…

I belive that dreams are some sort of combination between another universe and are unconsciouness.
Maybe we have a link within are self that helps us connect with other dimensions.
I belive that the most of our dreams take place in the “normal” unconsciouness but there are places
beyond that we can reach trough dreams.
We all have our own personal Hubble telescope within our minds. Maybe… :wink:

I was wondering how to respond to this topic but couldnt find right words.Last post expresses my thoughts on this topic very well.
I personally dont think our brain needs to deal with anything during the night.I understand its the only resonable explanation so far but theres no evidence to support that point of view.I guess its underestimating its possibilities.
As most of you know there are sciencific theories that brain and mind might be separate things.If so(i know-theres also no evidence) that would change the whole subject upside down.
If so-this will change the world.If so the death does not exist.
I like to think about this way and i hope one day we will know that for sure.

Ps.Note i became Astral Explorer!Heh,sounds proffesional:)

i would like for dreams to be more than just mind created illusions. Im sure a lot of people would like them to be actual supernatural things combining us all into one single sub-conscience existence thing, but so far no evidence of that has really proven it to be a fact. So id have to stick with the basic concept of dreams. I think they are also sort of a self-made therapy. I mean our bodys have a lot of ways of helping itself out. Like when we get sick we got immune systems, when we are hot we sweat to cool off. I think that dreams, in adjacent to the normal concepts of them, could also be another way our body helps itself out. I mean our world of reality and real world situations can be very frustrating and stressful on people. And i think i heard this sumwhere before that stressful people tend to have more dreams. Maybe this is just our minds work creating these fantasy and unrealistic dreams for us as a kind of therapy to allow us to escape from the stress of real world life. comments any1?

Very interesting theory, Trigpoe, and everyone else for that matter. Sounds quite logical and reasonable to me. Yes, the body does have ways of trying to better itself and heal itself, even though sometimes we are unaware of it or interperet as something else completely. Seems very reasonable that since it does try to better itself on a physical level, then why not on a psychological level as well.

Perhaps the day will come within our lifetimes that dreams are better understood as to the nature of them and what they truly do mean. I certainly hope so! :grin:

i don’t really think that dreams originated for the reason of therapy. But, dreams can be theraputic at times. dreams of flying and benevolence, theraputic. dreams of ghosts and monsters, stressful.
Dreams just are and nothing more really. its really the content of the dream that provokes a mental state of contentfulness, stress.
alot of dreams im apathetic towards.
theres too much non-sensical things going on in dreams (most of the time) for there to be a property of therapy.
ld’s are different though. one of the main applications of ld’ing is to have fun. fun is theraputic.
as for looking for divine answers that are obviously in you’re mind as it is, well, if its there in the first place then its probably influenced my personality without my direct knowing that this aspect existed. it probably works on a subconscious level and if it wasn’t influencing my behavior then it was probably a redundant thing anyways.

But if you look up what the non-sensical things in your dreams, then they do make sense, and something could be there that you didn’t even realize. At least this is the case for me.

Usually in my dreams, however, supernatural or non-sensical things do not take place, they are very normal dreams. (A reason I think I have trouble becoming lucid ~ nothing is really there to trigger it, except the occasional non-functioning lightswitch.)

My opinion is that dreams are a whole culmination of different things. I don’t believe they are supernatural.

When we sleep, our mind no longer receives signals from our bodies about physical movement, making descisions etc. and so it begins to wander - this is very evident from the hypnogogics etc. As we loose consciousness the thought processes take shape in the form of ‘stories’. The stories tend to contain a lot of our experiences and emotions, and they do seem to be influenced by chemicals/hormones in our bodies.
I think dreams can and are used to sort out problems and go over significant events in the day. There are certain symbols which seem to recurr for the majority of people, perhaps as we are brought up with these associations (not necessarily intentionally).

Well, that’s one side of the coin, anyway. Genuine precognative dreams (as opposed to coincidences) are a whole other side that I have absolutely no explanation for.

Wow! Everyone’s getting scientific about this subject. Do you really have to define what a dream is? I think dreams have a power all on their own, because they make us feel good. Dreams are magical. Anything can happen in a dream. You can take a break from waking reality in a dream. …My personal opinion: dreams take place in an astral dimension. Your environment, everything around you is created by your mind & emotions. If you become lucid, become physically still… let your emotions drop. You’ll notice that the surroundings will fall. Everything around you now is the astral dimension.

i think that dreams are a manifestation of humanity’s natural tendency to create. this is harmonic with the christian idea that we are designed in the lord’s image. i personally don’t think dreams have any supernatural significance, and they only exist to fulfill our unconscious need for creation. this is a beautiful thing though, and it offers us a chance to experience things impossible in wakinglife. lucid dreaming should be taught in public elementary school.

I think dreams are simplified thinking, and they are a form of fractals. Dreams are simplified fractals of thinking, that follow the same shape as the complicated fractals of thinking made while awake. It’s like being asked to draw the shape of your local mountain, but being told you are only allowed to show its shape by using 7 match sticks. Or being asked to draw the shape of a recent lightning bolt, but you can only use 10 match sticks. Simplification.
https://www.epicdewfall.ca/theory.shtml
I have 204 paintings from lucid dreams on my site that make me think about this alot.

I’d always gone along with the idea that dreams are messages from our subconscious, but thinking about it recently I realised that it doesn’t seem to make much sense.

The vast majority of people either don’t remember their dreams or have no clue what, if anything, they’re trying to communicate. If this is a message system then it’s horribly inefficient, and after millions of years of evolution you’d think we’d have evolved something with a little more clarity, particularly if the content of the messages is supposed to be important.