Most people I talk to about dreams feel that they mean something, and that it might be good to understand them, but are not sufficiently interested to seriously explore their dreams. Which is a pity, because the surface of a dream - what you remember - is only a thin layer of images, events and characters that have a lot more to tell than you think.
Image by Richard Dadd, late 1800's, who spent forty years in mental institutions during which he continued to paint. Many of his works were of his dreams.
Dreams were considered very pertinent in ancient times, and in many indigenous cultures, they are attended to very closely as sources of direction, information and spiritual guidance. But aside from Freudians and Jungians, or readers of Robert Moss's popular books on the dreaming, most of us know nothing about the history of western studies of dreaming, and because we rarely come across any recent discussions on the subject, we don't think that dreams are really that important.. . .
Yet we spend a good portion of our life dreaming. Don't you wonder why our minds invest so much time and energy into something that has no value? It seems to me perverse, if not downright schizophrenic that despite a rich history of investigation, theorizing and discussion of dreams by some highly credible and respected sources, dreams are generally treated in the west as little more than trash bins or possible indications of mental illness.
The truth is that a surprising number of esteemed scientists, mathematicians and physicians, creative artists, musicians and writers have attributed some of their most significant ideas to dreams, and dreams have also initiated some historically significant events.
Most of the following information can be found in the books by dream researchers, Robert Moss and Robert Van de Castle, wonderful reads, both.
The tablet of Gilgamesh, the mythic Mesopotamian king who sought to overcome death.
His two significant dreams are told here.
From abundant references to dreams, dream interpretation and decisions based on dreams in ancient texts from across the world, we know that there have always been those who delved deeply into the nature of dreams, and some even attempt to codify dream symbols.
In ancient Greece, Artemidorus of Daldis wrote the multi-volume treatise Oneirocritica based on an extensive record of dreams. For sheer breadth of detail, analysis, and classification of dreams and dream symbols, this book could well be called "the great-grandfather of all dream books". Although Artemidorus drew some fairly rigid and overly literal conclusions about dream symbols (for example, that animals always represent enemies), his theory of dreams and methods of dream analysis were in some ways very sophisticated. Not only are dream events and characters keys to its meaning, but “Every detail of the dream, and how the dreamer felt about each detail, should be ascertained. The internal structure of the dream also must be evaluated”.
Others were particularly interested in what part of the dreamer dreamed. Clearly, dreams are often irrational, so it could not be the rational mind that dreamed. In The Republic, the Greek philosopher Plato, sounding very much like Freud speaking of the subconscious with its repressed content, wrote:
"In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild beast nature which peers out in sleep”. In other words “since reasoning ability was suspended during sleep, the passions of desire and anger could reveal themselves with full force”.
Not only the dark aspects but all aspects of the psyche can speak to us through dreams, wrote Karl Schemer his 1861 book, Das Leben des Traumes. “The images [of the dream] throw off all the shackles of the ego so that the activity of the soul which we call phantasy is free from all the rules of reason and is also free from all restrictive factors, and thus rises to unlimited heights”.
(photo by Tatiana Wright)
Dreams can also offer invaluable guidance. The dreams of former slave, Harriet Tubman, helped save the lives of hundreds of slaves escaping via her “Underground Railroad” of safe havens, pointing out safe pathways so that despite pursuit by posses of slave hunters, Tubman “never lost a single ‘passenger’”. Gandhi’s non-violent mass strikes of 1919 which eventually led to the end of British rule in India were inspired by a dream.
And more recently, Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision not to seek another term was also triggered by a dream in which he found himself caught in a river unable to reach either shore. That dream and that decision to not run again could be seen as the catalyst that finally got us out of the bloody Vietnam war.
Some of the most interesting and informed insights into dreams appeared in Hervey de Saint-Denys’ Les reves et les mayens de les diriger, published anonymously in 1867. Based on his recorded dreams since age thirteen, Saint-Denys explained that dreams had their own logic that was grounded on certain distinguishable features, one being that “The moving panorama of our visions corresponds exactly with the train of ideas arising in our mind". In other words, what seem like a sequence of random images actually represents the flow of the dreamer’s thoughts.
Dream images may be abstractions, generalisations that creatively relate two seemingly different images. “A statue, for example, could become a living person . . . a closely packed crowd with heads turned toward some spectacle" could become transformed "into a field full of daisies, and then into a huge mosaic scattered with regularly spaced medallions".
Abstractions can also be based on “resemblances between words" or on a purely abstract concept such as inequality. In one dream Saint-Denys dreamed that different breeds of horses were assigned different kinds of work according to the horse’s perceived value, and then dreamed of water pipes of different length. Represented here was the abstract idea of inequality, transferred from dream to dream in totally different images.
Something that I have experienced myself is that dreams may be shared. In Sleep: Its Physiology, Pathology, Hygiene and Psychology (1897), Russian physician Marie de Manaceine tells of an event where several hundred soldiers sleeping in an abbey awoke on three consecutive nights in terror from the same nightmare of a big black, long-haired dog.
Of such “collective dreams” she wrote, “not only are the bounds of personal consciousness extended vaguely in sleep so as to cover all the past life of the sleeper. It is even possible to hold that the consciousness of the species, and even its predecessors, may be represented in the psychic organism and reappear in sleep”.
My own experience with shared dreams concerned my children. When my daughters were small, I would get a glimpse or sign within my own dream if they were having particularly bad nightmares, and could waken up to go soothe them. One time, my youngest, then in her early teens, told me she had dreamed of falling down a cliff, but had saved herself when I suddenly appeared and told her to dream of branches to hold onto. I was surprised, as I had also dreamed that night that she was falling and I told her what to do. (I do not recall ever getting into my son's dreams though).
And just recently, I read an article saying that "Studies Prove That Humans Can Communicate With Each Other While Dreaming" (conscious reminder.com)
(image from consciousreminder.com)
Clearly, there is much to be yet understood about dreams, and it could be that since dreams are so personal, and dream symbols can carry so many different meanings for us, there will never be a definitive explanation for and of dreams, but then again, the scientific method cannot yet explain consciousness or how we think, or even why a cell functions as it does, just that it does. On the really big things in life - who we are, what we are, how we should live and our life purpose - science can only guess; it is up to us individually to find the answers we seek.
I believe that dreams are one source of answers, and that if we learn to read them (which, I admit, takes some time and effort), we will find many of those answers already within. And if you do undertake such investigations, you can be assured of broad shoulders to stand upon.
To get you started, may I recommend Van de Castle's, Our Dreaming Mind. This book has so much fascinating information on dreams, dream history, and approaches to dreamwork that even if you just dip in here and there, you'll bring up gems. Its out of publication, but I bought my second-hand copy from World of Books in Australia.
And to gain a much deeper understanding of your own dreams, and how to interpret them, I highly recommend the course offered online by Atlantic University in Virginia.
Their 12 week Dream Interpretation Teacher Training course begins July 8, 2019.
Van de Castle, R. ( 1994) Our Dreaming Mind. New York: Ballantine Books. Highly recommended!!