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Post by SharksFan99 on Nov 15, 2020 15:02:33 GMT 10
No one knows for sure why dreams exist. Sigmund Freud believed that the content of dreams is driven by unconscious wishful fulfillment. Some even argue that they are glimpses into parallel universes. Whatever the case, dreams are something that really intrigue me and I would be interested to read other people's opinions on why dreams exist and if they do serve any purpose.
I honestly believe they all have meaning. Obviously some of them can be outright bizarre, and make no sense whatsoever, however I think there's a reason as for why the mind subconsciously gathers random bits of information in a particular order and molds them to play out a storyline. It simply isn't coincidental. I'm not sure if I fully believe in the idea that dreams are visions into a parallel universe. However, who's to say that aren't? No one can conclusively say that our subconsciousness is only bound by the laws of physics. Maybe we do have some kind of connection with other-realms and the visions we see in our dreams are more than just a creation of the mind?
I have actually been keeping a dream journal since the start of this year. From doing so, I have been able to interpret meanings out of some of the dreams I have experienced and have been able to apply them back to my own life.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2020 15:32:38 GMT 10
From what I read in Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker PhD (which had the subtitle of "Unlocking the power of sleep and dreams") dreaming provides a kind of emotional therapy, and boosts creativity and problem solving skills by helping your brain connect disparate ideas. The main thing about dreaming is your body is completely paralyzed and your eyes are closed, but if you peek into your brain you would see the parts in charge of motion and spatial awareness are wide awake. The part of your brain the ISN'T active is the prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of impulse control. Basically, when dreaming your brain gets to play around with its ideas without any inhibitions. Here is an essay by the author that explains better www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/why-do-we-dream-matthew-walker-explores-the-theories-behind-nocturnal-fantasias-a3799396.htmlAnyway no I don't think dreams have any deeper meaning. We evolved the ability to dream, it's a biological process that served a biological purpose.
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Post by SharksFan99 on Nov 15, 2020 21:07:14 GMT 10
From what I read in Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker PhD (which had the subtitle of "Unlocking the power of sleep and dreams") dreaming provides a kind of emotional therapy, and boosts creativity and problem solving skills by helping your brain connect disparate ideas. The main thing about dreaming is your body is completely paralyzed and your eyes are closed, but if you peek into your brain you would see the parts in charge of motion and spatial awareness are wide awake. The part of your brain the ISN'T active is the prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of impulse control. Basically, when dreaming your brain gets to play around with its ideas without any inhibitions. Here is an essay by the author that explains better www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/why-do-we-dream-matthew-walker-explores-the-theories-behind-nocturnal-fantasias-a3799396.htmlAnyway no I don't think dreams have any deeper meaning. We evolved the ability to dream, it's a biological process that served a biological purpose. I understand the processes that occur during REM sleep, but i'm not sure dreaming itself can simply be put down to biological purposes when there are still so many unknowns regarding the concept of dreams. The hippocampus stores millions of long-term, episodic memories. Out of the millions of information that is indexed into our brains and is available at the brain's disposal, why is it that only a very select few are gathered to form a vivid recollection that is often relevant to both our present lives and even of future events in our lives that we are not yet aware of? The probabilities of it are incredibly small. Like you mentioned, the brain gets to play around without any inhibitions while we are subconscious. We could dream about anything, but we only dream about specific things and there's only certain ones that we remember. Why is that the case? It also isn't possible to determine what you consider to be of more importance when like you mentioned, the pre-frontal cortex isn't active. We have no control over it. The subconscious doesn't place an emphasis on certain people, memories etc. when you consider how so many dreams defy logic and are completely out of context. There has to be a deeper meaning as for why we have the dreams that we experience. As an example, two years ago, I had a vivid dream that my Labrador had succumbed to cancer and was put down in our backyard. I actually posted about it in this thread. Coincidentally, she died from hemangiosarcoma (an aggressive form of cancer) in July this year, after having only been diagnosed with it in March. I had no reason to possibly contemplate her passing away from cancer two years ago, she wasn't experiencing any health problems at the time and I didn't have any feelings of fear over how many more years she had left. Of course, it could have just been something of an eerie coincidence, however it's also possible that the dream came to be as a subconscious message to make the most of the time I had left with her. That isn't to suggest all dreams are full of hidden meanings or are of significance. I don't think my dream of a Simpsons movie about Paul McCartney has any tangible meaning or is ever going to come true.  However, I do think we experience certain emotions and thought processes in our subconsciousness for a reason, and I believe it is a form of emotional therapy that actually helps us to determine what we want out of life and how we should go about it. We shouldn't write off dreams when there's still so much that we don't understand about the human mind and life in general.
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Post by Telso on Nov 16, 2020 0:47:24 GMT 10
I've had heard somewhere that dreaming was a way of your brain to try to keep itself busy during sleep. While the rest of your body and metabolism slow down considerably during sleep, your brain is actually still very active. Because there's a lack of sensory perception, dreams are mostly projections based around memories, emotions, longings or fears and personal dilemmas. Basically your brain is having fun with the info it has at hand while it can't percieve any new info
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Post by aja675 on Nov 16, 2020 11:31:57 GMT 10
I don't actually think so, but I guess they have accidental meanings. For example, I had this dream when I was 13 going on 14. (This was me using my mom's account.) It involved me going to a Muse concert and me thinking Matt Bellamy was touching my you-know-what, only for it to turn out it was just a ladyboy I went to school with in the late '00s. Someone said it had this meaning: ''This is nt a random dream, although it involved sex. This is a warning dream. Some guy will approach you in the near future (rather thn the distant future). He will act all nice to you. But it is all an act and he actually does not care about you.Plus he wants his desires at any cost, even if it involvs breaking ur heart. Do not fall for him.'' I mean, I guess that it was vaguely premonitory, for I was going to develop a crush on someone from school who was going to turn out to be an asshole. answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100528011151AAJ3Z1O
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2020 12:25:55 GMT 10
From what I read in Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker PhD (which had the subtitle of "Unlocking the power of sleep and dreams") dreaming provides a kind of emotional therapy, and boosts creativity and problem solving skills by helping your brain connect disparate ideas. The main thing about dreaming is your body is completely paralyzed and your eyes are closed, but if you peek into your brain you would see the parts in charge of motion and spatial awareness are wide awake. The part of your brain the ISN'T active is the prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of impulse control. Basically, when dreaming your brain gets to play around with its ideas without any inhibitions. Here is an essay by the author that explains better www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/why-do-we-dream-matthew-walker-explores-the-theories-behind-nocturnal-fantasias-a3799396.htmlAnyway no I don't think dreams have any deeper meaning. We evolved the ability to dream, it's a biological process that served a biological purpose. I understand the processes that occur during REM sleep, but i'm not sure dreaming itself can simply be put down to biological purposes when there are still so many unknowns regarding the concept of dreams. The hippocampus stores millions of long-term, episodic memories. Out of the millions of information that is indexed into our brains and is available at the brain's disposal, why is it that only a very select few are gathered to form a vivid recollection that is often relevant to both our present lives and even of future events in our lives that we are not yet aware of? The probabilities of it are incredibly small. Like you mentioned, the brain gets to play around without any inhibitions while we are subconscious. We could dream about anything, but we only dream about specific things and there's only certain ones that we remember. Why is that the case? It also isn't possible to determine what you consider to be of more importance when like you mentioned, the pre-frontal cortex isn't active. We have no control over it. The subconscious doesn't place an emphasis on certain people, memories etc. when you consider how so many dreams defy logic and are completely out of context. There has to be a deeper meaning as for why we have the dreams that we experience. As an example, two years ago, I had a vivid dream that my Labrador had succumbed to cancer and was put down in our backyard. I actually posted about it in this thread. Coincidentally, she died from hemangiosarcoma (an aggressive form of cancer) in July this year, after having only been diagnosed with it in March. I had no reason to possibly contemplate her passing away from cancer two years ago, she wasn't experiencing any health problems at the time and I didn't have any feelings of fear over how many more years she had left. Of course, it could have just been something of an eerie coincidence, however it's also possible that the dream came to be as a subconscious message to make the most of the time I had left with her. That isn't to suggest all dreams are full of hidden meanings or are of significance. I don't think my dream of a Simpsons movie about Paul McCartney has any tangible meaning or is ever going to come true. However, I do think we experience certain emotions and thought processes in our subconsciousness for a reason, and I believe it is a form of emotional therapy that actually helps us to determine what we want out of life and how we should go about it. We shouldn't write off dreams when there's still so much that we don't understand about the human mind and life in general. I didn't mean to say dreaming is insignificant. By "evolved" I actually implied that it's important to our survival: natural selection encourages traits that enhance survival and weed out ones that hamper it. As far as I know all mammals and birds dream, so obviously it is very important, and dreamless sleep has been eliminated from the gene pool since long ago. I don't think it has any supernatural qualities though. Dreaming likely did warn you about your dog's health, but only in a very logical way, not through time travelling or alternate dimensions or anything like that, as a lot of "dream readers" and Freudian "psychoanalysts" purport to be able to do. If the former is what you mean by "deeper meaning" then I agree dreams have a deeper meaning. In general, from what I read in the book, dreaming is a time for your brain to relate disparate pieces of knowledge and enhance problem solving skills (along with boosting creativity and providing emotional therapy). Perhaps the dream was your brain consolidating the concept of morality and relating it to your dog and to yourself, a concept your awake brain would have resisted and pushed away. I highly recommend the book btw if you're interested in the topic. I actually read it in 3-4 days. It was super fascinating and a real page turner, ESPECIALLY the section about dreams. Although for personal reasons, the section on deep sleep and its memory consolidation was of particular interest to me as someone who's hobby is language learning.
SharksFan99 likes this
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Post by goodbants on Nov 16, 2020 12:26:50 GMT 10
All my dreams involve me running and hiding from something/someone. Almost every single one of them. Don’t know what that says about me lol.
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Post by SharksFan99 on Nov 16, 2020 15:18:17 GMT 10
I didn't mean to say dreaming is insignificant. By "evolved" I actually implied that it's important to our survival: natural selection encourages traits that enhance survival and weed out ones that hamper it. As far as I know all mammals and birds dream, so obviously it is very important, and dreamless sleep has been eliminated from the gene pool since long ago. I don't think it has any supernatural qualities though. Dreaming likely did warn you about your dog's health, but only in a very logical way, not through time travelling or alternate dimensions or anything like that, as a lot of "dream readers" and Freudian "psychoanalysts" purport to be able to do. If the former is what you mean by "deeper meaning" then I agree dreams have a deeper meaning. In general, from what I read in the book, dreaming is a time for your brain to relate disparate pieces of knowledge and enhance problem solving skills (along with boosting creativity and providing emotional therapy). Perhaps the dream was your brain consolidating the concept of morality and relating it to your dog and to yourself, a concept your awake brain would have resisted and pushed away. I highly recommend the book btw if you're interested in the topic. I actually read it in 3-4 days. It was super fascinating and a real page turner, ESPECIALLY the section about dreams. Although for personal reasons, the section on deep sleep and its memory consolidation was of particular interest to me as someone who's hobby is language learning. That's a good point, I can see how the dream possibly could have occurred in the form of it being a thought on mortality in general. I do generally agree with what you are saying and I understand that there's logic behind a lot of the dreams that people experience. However, in saying that though, i'm not sure if I can completely rule out the idea of dreams being influenced by 'something else', whether it's exactly supernatural or not i'm not sure. That's just who I am as a person though. I very much believe in the science and the logic that is behind different concepts, but i'm also of the belief that we don't have the answers to everything in this life. Going back to the dream I had, for the cause of death to have been cancer out of the hundreds of other potential causes (eg. like getting ran over by a car) is a bit of an interesting link. My Grandma passed away from cancer back in 2007, so maybe there's a small possibility that could have influenced it? It's hard to say for sure though. I do agree that the idea of dreams being some kind of look into another dimension or parallel universe is pretty far-fetched. We don't know for sure that parallel universes don't exist as we don't have the evidence to disprove them, but even if they did exist, I doubt our brains would have the capability to actually 'connect us' with another dimension. Yeah, I wouldn't mind giving it a read actually. I might try and look it up. 
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Post by smartboi on Nov 17, 2020 7:41:11 GMT 10
I would say that they have a meaning, but only in an indirect way. As everyone else already said, dreams are just your brain coming up with scenarios while using previously acquired info. I think dreams only have a meaning when we are conscious and ascribe it to them.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2020 4:50:58 GMT 10
I began documenting my dreams in 1991 to make sense of my mind as my dreams are completely bizarre.
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Post by al on Nov 20, 2020 13:17:17 GMT 10
Yes and no. I think some are completely nonsensical, and often are related directly to what I encountered or thought about within the last 48 hours or so. Yet others contain repetitive themes, often related to emotional repression, fears, and "tasks" I need to complete. Areas where I feel stuck so to be speak seem to really be highlighted in the dream realm. I have also experienced dreams which are mildly prophetic, while I have known others to have dreams which are extremely so. I suppose the ratio of quality content probably mimics our lives, in the sense that most of us are not doing or thinking about anything particularly deep more often than not.
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However, I do think we experience certain emotions and thought processes in our subconsciousness for a reason, and I believe it is a form of emotional therapy that actually helps us to determine what we want out of life and how we should go about it. We shouldn't write off dreams when there's still so much that we don't understand about the human mind and life in general. 
