The Meaning of Dreams fascinated us since the beginning of mankind. We have learned where our dreams come from, and quite often what caused us to have a particular dream. We have many types of dreams, ranging from the exotic or sexual dream to very frightening dreams which we refer to as nightmares. Seeing images, hearing sounds, and sometimes feeling sensations are common in our dreams. There are times when we hear voices in our dreams that we cannot control. We know all of these things about dreaming, but we have not yet learned why we dream and what the Meaning of Dreams are.
According to Wikipedia (The Free Online Encyclopedia) dreams are the images, thoughts, and feelings experienced while asleep, particularly strongly associated with REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. The contents and purpose of dreams are not fully understood, though they have been a topic of speculation and interest throughout recorded history. Do dreams have special meanings? Are dreams brought on by incidents that happened during the day, this week, or maybe this month?
Since the earliest recorded history, people have theorized about the function and meaning of dreams and the true Meaning of Dreams has been a classic debate for thousands of years. Most theories however, remain tantalizingly inconclusive.
There have been several studies done to determine why we dream and the meaning of dreams, but all have been inconclusive. We certainly have many theories why we dream, but determining the reason why we dream has long been disputed and never agreed upon.
Many feel the true meaning of dreams is your mind coming to terms with what it has dealt with during the day. Another theory says that to dream is a biologically necessary aspect of sleep, and forgetting dreams is an important part of emotional development. Many experts believe the function of dreams is to express the unconscious. Most believe dreams are reflections of the subconscious mind, and some believe they are predictions of the future. There are even some people who believe dreams are messages from God. There is no doubt that dreams have inspired many artistic forms.
Several studies have been done regarding dreams with sexual content, finding that about 8% of both men’s and women’s dreams contain content of a sexual nature.
Studies show that dreams appear to be more perceptual than conceptual, and the dreams we have in the later half of the night are usually longer than those you have soon after going to sleep. Understanding the Meaning of Dreams is useful in learning more about the dreamer’s feelings, thoughts, behavior, motives and values. Dreams are also an expression of personal experiences, which can manifest in terms of symbols and myths. Many dreams observed in sleep laboratory experiments are rather ordinary, but it has been noted that most people have at least some bizarre and uncommon dreams.
While some dreams may only occur once, it is very common to have recurring dreams with the same theme. Approximately 70% of women and 65% of men report recurrent dreams. Common dream themes involve sexual experiences, flying, falling off cliffs or buildings, embarrassing moments, running but not getting anywhere, people being alive that are dead, and car accidents.
Calvin S. Hall is credited with the realization that people from all over the world dream of mostly the same things. He collected more that 50,000 dream reports at Western Reserve University from 1940 to 1985. Anxiety and negative emotions are more common than positive feelings in most dreams, and the U.S. ranks the highest amongst industrialized nations for aggressive dreams.
