What do dreams mean to you?

[kwpnjumper55]

Sorry Im a little post whorey today.

Do you interpret dreams to be prophetic or meaningful or are they simply ideas that your brain manipulates?

I ask because I have frequent dreams about my best guy friend in High School. They are never sexual, though I was/am attracted to him ( Harvard, Cpt of the soccer team there, now flys F-14's for the Navy)
I wonder if the dreams means something

[hallows]

I am a dream believer. I feel a difference between the ones that mean something, usually telling me to do something or leave something alone, the ones that are me working through something, and the rest I feel are just entertaining my brain while I'm asleep.

What do you think these dreams mean?

[kwpnjumper55]

I think they mean that we should reconnect as friends. That's hard to do though, I don't think he is allowed on fb because of the sensitivity of his job. I know his parents still live where they did when we were in High School and I occasionally see pictures of him pop up on FB from mutual friends. I know that he is now married so I don't know how his wife would feel about an old friend contacting him. I think it's a lost cause.

[hallows]

I have a couple of friends like that, and the curiosity can be awful, but I think I agree that it's a lost cause.

[jennlin]

i remember my dreams most every night. so no, i don't find much meaning in my dreams. sometimes they make me feel insecure (ones where i dream that h is cheating), but for the most part, i just laugh at how ludicrous they are.

[Deleted]

For me, dreams fall in to a few categories:
- "prophetic" which is where your subconscious is putting together all those little clues your conscious didn't pay attention to, often in an attempt to bring it to the conscious level. Sort of like equating Sherlock Holmes solving a "mystery" through acute observation that the average person doesn't notice.

- "processing/filing" where your brain is replaying events or interpretations of events in order to understand and file away the memories, choosing what to discard and what to put in more permanent "files"

- "processing/understanding" - This is actually the majority of my dreams, where my brain is trying to work through personal problems, emotions, hopes, fears, anxieties, etc. When I was younger, my dad and stepmom were really in to dream interpretation and spent a lot of time with me trying to understand my dreams. These are the ones where I really employ that skill.

[karebear219]

I'm with jennlin. Most of my dreams are related to the stress I'm experiencing in life or my brain just using its imagination. I don't take stock in them, except making a mental note to try to reduce my stress level.

[amandasw]

did any of you watch AWAKE?! omg that show was so good (and I can't believe it got cancelled)

anyway, I don't really think much of dreams and their meaning

[Deleted]

When trying to understand dreams, it's important to remember that most brains are not direct and exact. Your brain tends to function in metaphor, symbolism, and archetypal characters.

I occasionaly have romantic/sexual dreams about a friend from high school who I was briefly interested in for a few months. These dreams are not remotely about wanting to be involved with him instead of my husband. After some reflection about who he had been to me at that time, what I thought of him, I realized he has come to represent my wild side. (He was one of those in HS who I knew did a lot of drugs and experimented with harder ones, had little to no oversight by his parents, was an outspoken aethiest, shunned almost all conventions, and did what he wanted.) While sometimes sex dreams are just about hormones and sex, in the world of interpretation, sex also represents coming together, desire, unity, and similar themes. When he is in a dream, he's representing those inclinations or desires of mine to be "wild" and go against society, rules, etc.

So think about your old friend. While part of it may truly be a yearning to reconnect to an old friendship, your brain may have also decided to use him as a symbol of something else. What did you think of him while you were friends, what did he represent? Success? The "American Dream"? The unattainable? The overachiever? Then take whatever that is and try to interpret it within the context of the actions in the dreams and then see if there are parallels in your life currently. This could be unacknowledged or unspoken wishes or even just your brain trying to understand a situation you currently have.

[picksthemusic]

Depends on the dream... but if it's about someone I know and love, I usually take it as a sign that I need to check up on them.

[Deleted]

Aug 27, 2012 14:14:26 GMT -5 karebear219 said:

I'm with jennlin. Most of my dreams are related to the stress I'm experiencing in life or my brain just using its imagination. I don't take stock in them, except making a mental note to try to reduce my stress level.

This or they're so absurd that it makes me laugh.