something I dreamt last night

March 18, 2009 2:02 AM

Do you remember a dream which had a special significance for you ?

I was dreaming last night, and when I woke up, I just began to search for past dreams that had really left an enduring feeling or train of thought. And of course I wondered about the role that dreams now play for everyone, in our daily activities, in our experiences, in our understanding of our own life. I don't mean dreams as projects or hopes, but dreams as experienced while sleeping, over which content we are powerless.

posted by nicolin to Society & Culture (5 answers total)

When I was about 8 I had just moved back to my country of birth after a year and a half living in my the country of the other culture I identifty with, and I althought I was 'home' I missed the other country a lot. I couldn't sleep for about 2 weeks because I had the same dream (which at the night time felt like a nightmare, although wasn't your typical scary dream) every night, it involved a very minimal visual concept and a lot of sounds and voices, voices that sounded like they were speaking very slowly and very fast at the same time (a phenomenon I cannot even conjure up in m own mind - just vague fragments of what it felt like in the dream). I could never really pinpoint what made the dream so awful, but it made me afraid to go to sleep at night. After awhile it subsided, but over the following 5 years it came back every now and again. I can't really remember when or how exactly, but I eventually figured out that somehow in this dream it was my responsibility to decide for my whole family whether we stay in country one or move to country two for good. You could probably spend years looking deeply into the subconscious, trying to figure out exactly why my mind created this scenario or why it made it so fearsome. But it did have special significance.
posted by atmosphere at 2:45 AM on March 18, 2009

I dream of chatfilter.
posted by Girl Scout of Death at 2:47 AM on March 18, 2009

Response by poster: chatfilter

Well, not precisely. Just want to check whether people are making room for what dreams mean to them or not.
posted by nicolin at 2:55 AM on March 18, 2009

I'm all alone. I'm rolling up a big doughnut when this snake in a vest
posted by Ljubljana at 3:27 AM on March 18, 2009

I'm about as rational as they come, so I think dream interpretation books are bollocks, for example.

But, I think dreams are powerful, amazing stuff, and strong indicators of what's bothering me, holding me back, inspiring me etc. So I take time to think about them each morning, and what they might signify (I have several dreams each night that I can remember in the morning).

Same dream over and over? Time to act. Shift to a new set of dreams? Feedback that I've worked through the bottleneck somehow.

Sitting here I can list nearly 20 that, over about 20 years, have affected me profoundly and prompted me to take action in some way. Or have simply been wonderful.

But they matter: warnings, inspiration, feedback, I think that dreams offer the lot if you take time to get to know them.

Going back to the rational bit, I think the value comes in doing the work to understand your dreams in your own terms, not via a book. It's a trial and error process, to find out what you need to do in the real world to change what's happening in your head at night. There are no short cuts to this, but I think it's worth the investment in time.

I think approaching them like a set of tarot cards is waste of time, though: it's about forging your own understanding of your own mind.
posted by dowcrag at 3:37 AM on March 18, 2009