Thursday, March 25, 2010

Puzzling Dreams

I do not believe dreams can be analyzed from a book. I once had a dream in which penguins were sliding down a giant slalom, then shooting into the air, flapping their feet, and flying, A woman told me animals in dreams symbolized problems, and I wanted my problems to fly away.

I don’t think an analysis of this sort is right. In fact, I think it’s completely wrong, How anyone determined that animals in dreams symbolize problems is beyond me. I think it’s a trite and superficial explanation.

Some dreams you can figure out on your own. Others, no.

I recently had a dream about a woman I know, who got into a car with me and said it was very important for her to go home and make her bed. It made absolutely no sense to me. Yet when I told her about it, she said she had let her bed pile up until it got to the point she had to clean it off, then make it.

Now what is going on here? Is this just a coincidence? I don’t think it is. Sometime, in my dream, I picked up her intention to make her bed. How did I do this? Ultimately, I don’t know.

I do have some thoughts, though, Everything and everyone is in some way connected, and thoughts and feelings can somehow be passed from one person to another.

People have, for thousands of years, known what was happening to someone else. My mother swears when I was in college she could make me call her by thinking about it. Who am I do deny it?

Some years ago one of my friends, an elderly diabetic, ended up in the hospital, where she died. We knew she was going to die.

One night, she appeared to me in a dream, just as vividly as could be. She essentially said, “Bye, I’m going now.” I have never in my life had a dream that vivid in the middle of the night that I remembered in the morning.

When I woke up the next morning, I knew she had died. I even knew the time: about 2:30 in the morning, When I went to the hospital her room was empty. I didn’t even ask the nurses when she had died. I already knew.

As I said, the only explanation I have for any of this is that everyone is connected, The stronger the emotional connection, the easily to pick something up from someone else.

6 comments:

Enbrethiliel said...

+JMJ+

Some dream dictionaries are better than others, but the best interpretation of a dream I ever got was from an unusually perceptive friend.

I had just had a weird dream in which I was Kyle Reese and had a lot of friends who were hobbits. We were allowed to spend the night in Galadriel's home, but in the morning she told us that while I was still welcome, the hobbits would have to leave.

After I related all that (plus some really wacky details), my friend paused for a second and then said: "Galadriel is our landlady and you're one of her favourites. She's never going to kick you out, but she just told some people they couldn't come back to live here any longer."

And it absolutely fit!

I wasn't predicting the future or anything; it was a dream about stuff that had already happened, and I was probably just talking to myself--in symbols rather than words--in my sleep.

Since then, though, I've analysed only my own dreams. I don't think I can help with others (and when I dream of them, they usually represent other people, anyway)--but I like the weird stuff my mind can come up with when I'm asleep.

(I must say, though, that if I dreamed about someone who needed to "make her bed," I'd zero-in on the figurative meaning of that expression.)

Unknown said...

She sleeps on her couch, as I do. Figure that one out!

Enbrethiliel said...

+JMJ+

Which is precisely why I would have gone for the figurative meaning of "making one's bed"!

Dra90nR1d3r said...

"As I said, the only explanation I have for any of this is that everyone is connected, The stronger the emotional connection, the easily to pick something up from someone else. "

Gee, I hope NOT ! I don't want to be connected in any way to my boss.
I don't need him reading my mind.

Unknown said...

You're connected to him because you HATE him and he knows it!!!

BWHAHAHA!!!

Unknown said...

She did ask me if I had a "partner" on my couch.