Graphic: SciTechDaily
Dreams reflect the dreamer’s unconscious mind, the father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud wrote. A dream’s content is shaped by unconscious wish fulfilment. Therefore, you can psychoanalyse yourself, be your own shrink. In analytical psychology, dreams are “the royal road” to understanding the unconscious.
My dreams are often about rescuing animals, usually a dog. I can fly with only my arms for wings. I discover new trails in scenic locations for the Hash House Harriers. I am often with celebrities, Clinton, Blair, Obama as their confidant. Last night I was hiking on a water-logged muddy farm with the orange fraud Trumpy. He was in his blue suit with too-long red tie, in a mess and getting angry. I also dreamt about trying to help a local accountancy firm that was in trouble. How odd. I have little time for bean-counters.
Freud also wrote in his 1899 “The Interpretation of Dreams” about a son’s sexual attraction to his mother and hostility to his father. In a daughter’s case the reverse. This he called the Oedipus Complex. Have I ever dreamed of having sex with my mother? Not that I remember. My sexual dreams are often about finding an erotic young woman willing to give me all and I wake up before my aching desire can be realised. Then I try to go back to sleep and return to the sensuous scene for consummation. It never works.
Scientists have concluded most people dream for only two hours a night. Images, ideas, emotions, sensations flow through our minds during sleep. Each dream is only five to twenty minutes, but it may seem much longer. How many times have you woken up thinking that dream could make the plot of a movie?
Dreams have been written about in all cultures from ancient times. Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese, Hindus, all have their own interpretation of dreams. From the earliest times, philosophical writings have talked about dreams highlighting visits by a deity or powerful forebear commanding the dreamer to take action. They may predict future events. Such prophetic dreams may include images, visions, sounds, people or messages coming in the future. Prophetic dreams do not happen to everyone. Some people have more prophetic dreams than others, depending on their spiritual gifts, intuition or openness to the divine.
“To dream the impossible dream, to fight the invincible foe . . . ” The magical musical “Man of La Mancha” in 1965.
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