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Dream Interpretations for the Skeptic

Posted by on Feb 11, 2011 in Essays, Images, Personal | 2 comments

Dream Interpretations for the Skeptic

Dreams of Flight by me

I’ve always been interested in decoding my dreams. I’m not sure if there’s something there, but I feel like my subconscious mind is either trying to tell me something or it’s just unraveling from the day. Either way, I know – if there is anything to them – only I can interpret them. Any dream dictionary online (or book) has got to be at least 95% bullshit. However, I believe I can understand my own, which may lead to a deeper comprehension of something else. It may not.

I’ve had some dreams that are an easily understood metaphor for something else. Anyone else trying to decode your dreams – unless they know you very well – would be worthless. Yet, I feel that’s there is something to them, at least on occasion. And sometimes it has lead me to understand something dwelling within my subconscious.

There are times when I have very real dreams. Meaning that something happens that would in real life. I’ve had dreams where I get to tell someone off that I wasn’t able to before. I’ve even had lucid dreams, though not many. I had one dream many months ago where I was in a bad situation with people that were treating me rather poorly. I tried to fly off, superhero style. I was unable to. Then, I said to myself, “Why can’t I fly? This is just a dream.” Then I tried again and took off (it was also raining heavily but I didn’t care), leaving a bad situation behind. (I woke up feeling like Iron Man – or Woman – because of the flight position I was in.) It was very empowering. I don’t have many lucid dreams but I do enjoy them. I know you can make them occur more frequently but I haven’t succeeded in that yet.

Additionally, I recall a lot less dreams than I did when I was younger. I would remember dreams the next morning that were utterly insane. This happened almost every morning. Now, it’s a rarer occurrence that I recall a dream. So when I do, I want to figure it out.

I am interested in seeing how others (including skeptics) feel about dream interpretations.

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  • http://www.jen-hancock.com Jen

    I was taught to be a lucid dreamer by my mother and she is the one that raised me as a Humanist. I don’t see anything wrong with dream interpretation. Generally speaking, dream interpretation is all about understanding your present mindset better. If it were about predicting the future, that would be wierd and unrealistic. But seriously – sometimes you are working on stuff and the dreams help you understand it better if you take the time to dissect them. And yeah – lucid dreaming rocks! Recently I dreamt all my toilets were broken and so we had installed one in the hallways (which also didn’t work) and one in a closet (which obviously didn’t work) and I was upset because not only did we have no working toilets but our house was totally unsanitary. No problem interpreting that one, our toilets have been giving us trouble and I think it is time to bring in the professionals to replace our existing toilets – now – I just need to convince the hubby.

    • http://jewmanist.com Rose Schwartz

      LOL. Yeah, I agree. It’s just funny when you try to consult a book or the web and get very cut and dry answers that make little sense. i.e., spiders mean you are going to die.