Instead of typing up some long misquoted discourse I will go to a numerously referenced but never truely reliable source Wiki...

Dream interpretation is the process of assigning meaning to dreams. In many of the ancient societies, including Egypt and Greece, dreaming was considered a supernatural communication or a means of divine intervention, whose message could be unravelled by those with certain powers. In modern times, various schools of psychology have offered theories about the meaning of dreams.

In the Western world, the first major work on dream interpretation was the 2nd-century Oneirocritica by Artemidorus, which interpreted the meaning of many subjects of dreams. Dream interpretation was taken up as part of psychoanalysis at the end of the 19th century; the perceived, manifest content of a dream is analyzed to reveal its latent meaning to the psyche of the dreamer. One of the seminal works on the subject is The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud.
quoted from Wikipedia...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_interpretation [en.wikipedia.org]

Is there meaning to our dreams? Is there a psychoanalytical component? Do dreams have a supernatural or precognitive nature to them? Or as Ebenezer Scrooge would say...paraphrasing here...may be it something we ate?

Dreams are important , its your sub-brains way of working out problems that your top level brane is to afraid to deal with or forgot about , the barin uses a weird sort of symbolism to relate this information to you when you wake up . that's why manny dreams apear to be psychic , it's because your subconcious has anticipated some RL event and spent the night trying to prepare you for it .
anyway i think it is relevant that as dream interpretation declines ; mental illness increases and pill companies post record profits !!!

Dreams are the trippiest drug ever.

Do they actually mean anything? Probably, in a very low-level language.

It's just as Lothar said. :)

Although.... there's times when I feel like my subconicous is just fucking around rather than actually working out issues or something.
condsiering the amount of MMORPG-like dreams I've had.

Dreams are the hidden parts of us. It unlocks what we think, feel, and want to know. But they also unlock the things we don't want to know, and our fears.

Dreams are the result of your mind working while you're unconscious. It's still processing, just it doesn't have the guidance that you would have when you're awake. I'm of the opinion that "analyzing dreams" is kinda a waste of time, right up there with thinking that babies "know more than we think they do."

Vagabond
Dreams are the result of your mind working while you're unconscious. It's still processing, just it doesn't have the guidance that you would have when you're awake. I'm of the opinion that "analyzing dreams" is kinda a waste of time, right up there with thinking that babies "know more than we think they do."

yeah. the only way we would really know for sure was if we invented a machine that recorded thoughts, feelings and images from our minds while we were asleep. could be handy for figuring out that whole baby thing too.

but until then.... we'll never know.

Once I had a dream where I was in a mental asylum...everything was so brightly coloured, and the workers all wore clown masks... The next morning at school, I got Cs on all 5 of my tests...

If it turned out that dreams were part of some paranormal entity, as a Tarot Card reading, Ghost and Alien believer, I'd be the first to accept it.
But I think that, unless through Lucid dreaming, chance or some other method, a dream is just a venting of random emotions of the brain.
They are quite puzzling once you stop and think about it...

TheMidge28
Is there meaning to our dreams? Is there a psychoanalytical component? Do dreams have a supernatural or precognitive nature to them? Or as Ebenezer Scrooge would say...paraphrasing here...may be it something we ate?

I have to say I veer towards the "something we ate" school of thought.

I remember seeing a study on people who claimed never to have dreamed. Firstly, it was proven that everyone dreams, it's just that some people do not remember theirs. Secondly, it showed how dreams can be manipulated. One person was splashed with water while he slept. He woke to say he'd dreamed of being on a boat with water spraying over him, the suggestion being therefore that dreams are the brain's way of interpreting the various stimuli that the senses continue to pick up while we're asleep.

Not conclusive, but interesting.

All my dreams lately have been about talking with people I already talk to, working on work stuff, or working on my own project stuff. Once I had a dream about mowing the lawn.

And then I wake up and I have to do those things all over again. T_T Screw you dreams!

Vagabond
Dreams are the result of your mind working while you're unconscious. It's still processing, just it doesn't have the guidance that you would have when you're awake. I'm of the opinion that "analyzing dreams" is kinda a waste of time, right up there with thinking that babies "know more than we think they do."

Yep, its just the brain freestyling in the absence of input. The same thing happens to people in sensory deprivation tanks. Deprived of input, the brain keeps working, resulting in flashback or a hodgepodge of randomly constructed events.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEJmWPCWV88

What actually happens during dreams is that DMT is released into your brain. This drug causes extremely potent hallucinations which you will not be able to remember once you wake up. The only kind of dream you can really remember are the ones where you're sort of awake. But there are many more that you will never be able to recall that occurred during the 8 or so hours you were asleep.

DMT is illegal to buy in the US, but if you get some and smoke it apparently it lasts for 5 minutes and you're better able to remember what happens. People who've done it say that what you see can never be described after the fact.

I did not know that. Thanks!

Aurora Moon
yeah. the only way we would really know for sure was if we invented a machine that recorded thoughts, feelings and images from our minds while we were asleep. could be handy for figuring out that whole baby thing too.

That would be so cool. I wish we had something like that now. I get a lot of my story and comic ideas from my dreams, but those are only the ones I remember. Just imagine how productive I could be if I had an actual RECORD of them all! :)

Loud_G

Aurora Moon
yeah. the only way we would really know for sure was if we invented a machine that recorded thoughts, feelings and images from our minds while we were asleep. could be handy for figuring out that whole baby thing too.

That would be so cool. I wish we had something like that now. I get a lot of my story and comic ideas from my dreams, but those are only the ones I remember. Just imagine how productive I could be if I had an actual RECORD of them all! :)

me too!

I am going to answer this with my thoughts/beliefs/opinions before I read the other posts to the forum thread so as to keep my reply untainted. Dreams for me are most definately and often my 'connection' to my deity. My dreams are my way of 'downloading' my experiences into my 'afterlife account' if you will. I am busily, happily creating the perceptive world into which I will be born upon my passing from this frame, and join my deity corporate whole. Some dreams are what I call 'teaching dreams' in which something I am learning during the day comes calling and haunts me for a whole night. As much as I hate this, the next day I am usually able to perform the task flawlessly as the cerebral knowledge has been shifted to 'medulla knowledge'where it becomes instinctual.

I have had visits with my deity. I visited summerhome once and woke up crying it was so beautiful and I wanted to stay. I spoke to my grandmother before she re-incarnated and I have been infinately inspired by both good and evil in the course of dreaming. Mostly I remember turquiose island--that beautiful, terrifying place of loneliness and isolation with danger all around where I sometimes find myself...and those are my dreams...

oh my god take your meds

TnTComic
oh my god take your meds

Hey TnTComic, would you mind making more of your posts than unproductive stuff like "Wow" or condescending stuff like "take your meds"? We like to foster productive discussion in these parts.

TnTComic
oh my god take your meds

I am sorry if you feel that I am psychotic. My wife IS schizophrenic (and still one of the sanest people I have ever met--she does, by the way, take her meds as you say) and yet I have seen her psychotic (which saddens me greatly in the rare times it happens. Modern meds are good, but not perfect.) I have also worked with the mentally ill community for many years as a social worker, and I still work as a 'consumers' advocate to assure the best health care I can for mentally ill persons. I have found even the most delusional and psychotic people still some of the kindest, gentlest, most 'childlike' people around. If that is a bad thing, sign me up.
Belief in a Deity--or perhaps better to say, the ABILITY to believe in a Deity, is I believe a simple outgrowth of a Deity's existence. The connection points are there no matter how hard one denies them--in the case of athiests, I believe they doth protest TOO much! However, I cherish my connection, and it gives my life a sense of hope and meaning I would not have if I thought it all ended the last time my eyes closed...
In my religion, which I am NOT proselytizing for, dreams are a crucial part of the spiritual connection. I have been strongly touched and influenced by my dreams--which was what I had hoped my small essay had infered. I hope others have as well!