First off, everyone dreams 4-6 times a night despite if you remember it or not. Dreams are created from our imagination that can be put into story / image form. Dreams can cause many emotions from becoming happy to sad or just flat out confused. But what do dreams really mean and what is the purpose of them? Can dreams help you predict the future? Do dreams have bigger meanings that affect your life?
Some experts say that dreams have no correlation with our real emotions but are just strange stories that have been put together with our imagination while asleep. Other experts may say that our dreams bring out our real fears and desires and that we should act upon them. Either way while we sleep our brain’s imagination is unleashed and this has lead to many people coming up with their best and most creative ideas. Many believe that you should follow your dreams because it is your subconscious talking to you.
Nightmares are often caused by; stress, fear, emotional problems, illness, and or drug use. An article on Webmd.com talks on how if you have a continuous nightmare you should listen to your subconscious because it might be trying to inform you of something important or of something that you need to do. Either way nobody really has the answer on what the meaning is behind dreams and nightmares.
I have had many dreams where I have woken up confused out of my mind on what the higher meaning of the dream meant or if it meant anything at all. While researching information on dreams I found a link to an article called “14 Common Dreams and Symbols and Why They’re Important”. I can say I have definitely experienced a few of those myself.
http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/dreaming-overview#1
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dreamscloud/meaning-of-dreams_b_4504512.html
This post really made me think of past dreams that I have had. The strangest dream I have ever had was I was in a fight but none of my punches connected with my opponent, or they did not seem to phase him at all. I did some research and couldn’t find anything about it, although it sounds like many other people have had a similar dream. I hope more studies will be done on dreams in the future so I can get to the bottom of this!
I feel that dreams have absolutely nothing to do with the way we feel or think. I have had dreams that I can fly or that I am falling off the top of a building, not really sure what either of them mean maybe one day I will find out. <a href="http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1881498,00.html"Here is a link that talks about how dreams mean less than most of us think they do. For me the only dreams that really have any meaning are the ones that have a someone in it that has passed away or a long distance relative you don’t get to see very often; then there is some meaning. Other than that dreams are just a bunch of empty movement going on in your head.
I think that our dreams can definitely be telling us something about what we have been subconsciously thinking about. In my psychology class in high school, we talked about Freud’s ideas on dreaming. He used dream analysis and free association to relate dreams to life and thoughts. There are two ways he described dreams, manifest content and latent content. Manifest content is what the dream appears to be saying and the latent content is what the unconscious is really trying to communicate to the consciousness. Therefore, I think that a lot of our dreams are trying to tell us something or express a feeling that we have been experiencing.
Dreams and nightmares are a vast subject, strictly because we lack certain advanced technology to determine what actually is going on within the brain. But this question can go even more in depth, as to why do some people remember dreams/nightmares and why do some people forget whatever they may have dreamt? Emotions and fears relating to nightmares could be due to chance, as that could be an answer in any scientific question/theory. And even further in depth, what comprises a dream within the brain? Such studies can further along brain study, as I always had a interest in.
This subject makes you think to yourself, what makes my thought process different than someone else? Thought makes up the scientific world, as thought creates experiments where we look for errors in others work. Dreams are a vast subject, looking to grow with more information as more technology rises.