Signs and symbols?

[VoxDei]

I had a lecture a couple of days back about dreams. The lecture itself was pretty awful, but the lecturer's idea got me wondering. His idea was that a dream is a message from God, and that it has a meaning you can discover by looking at it's underlying themes.

I would be disinclined to agree with this view point, in part due to the fact that if my last few dreams are anything to go by, everybody I know and care about is going to die horribly at my hands, and partly because it doesn't sit well with the idea that the brain is a lump of squishy paste which produces out put in the form of changes in electrical current.

Anyway, my question is: do your dreams have any meaning, other than as an indicator of your state of mind? And secondly, if they do have meaning, how would you go about ascertaining this meaning? And what about nightmares?

 

[rlodge]

I don't know dreams are messages or just your imagination going wild while your conscious brain is at rest.

People say you dream every night and if that's the case, I don't remember them come morning. I sleep like a rock and wake up with barely a memory of the previous day's events.

I guess if it is a message from God, then I'm either blowing Him off (I hope not!) or He just doesn't have much to say to me at the time. :dunno:

 

[Spartan Erik]

Dreams are the product of our brain reorganizing past events.

In fact you might think of it as defragmenting your brain: you're moving some fragmented files that were stored for quick storage, you're processing the files (dream itself) and moving them into the proper locations for organizational purposes.

Heh I felt like putting my own tech-twist on this concept

 

[velvetmay]

For me and I consider myself to be extremely weird and spiritual, dreams are a gateway to your mind. It's how my mind tries to tell me what I don't want to hear or what I haven't figured out consciously.

One of the dreams I remember vividly is a dream where I saw my friend die by the hands of her boyfriend. A year after the dream I find out that they had relationship problems going on (believe me they hid it very well). My dreams were trying to show me something but I felt it was a nightmare. Perhaps nightmares are messages that we don't want to accept.

 

[rlodge]

Dreams are the product of our brain reorganizing past events.

In fact you might think of it as defragmenting your brain: you're moving some fragmented files that were stored for quick storage, you're processing the files (dream itself) and moving them into the proper locations for organizational purposes.

Heh I felt like putting my own tech-twist on this concept

I guess that means my "Defrag.exe" is busted!:biggrin:

 

[chisaku]

Wow, that's pretty interesting. My dreams aren't that special, I've once dreamed about that I was breeding sharks that would later on be turned in to food. The sharks were scary and had bloody teeth... but I doubt that it has any meaning, in my opinion.

My dreams are never realistic, so they aren't realistic in my daily life either. =( Nightmares on the other hand... they feel real. About how I would fail at school and how one of our most mean teachers comes back. Dx But that hasn't happened, I'm really grateful it didn't either.

So, my opinion is that dreams doesn't have any bigger meaning in my life. (I'm usually awake more than I sleep. xD)

 

[intenex]

While I'm quite certain that dreams are not messages from God (at least I hope mine aren't), they are definitely pertinent in some form or shape to your life.

You can't push dreams off as being absolutely random, as as Spartan Erik said, dreams are the product of past experiences. Your brain is capable of synthesizing vast amounts of information when asleep, which is why "sleeping on something" actually does happen to work.

As for the degree of relevance that dreams have and their directness, I couldn't say. Nightmares are interesting things...most of the time, I don't have dreams, but that's because I've only slept well a few days this entire school year. When I do have dreams, however, they tend to be violent. While typically coherent and linear, they tend to involve me as a victim or a bystander. I wonder if this is common? Or are most people the protagonist/antagonist of their nightmares?

 

[KentonBomb]

Dreams are merely our way to tap into our inner physic :eek4dance

"Hey guys! I just made $30 by telling someones future! And I wasn't even awake!"

In all seriousness, I think dreams are no more than a way for our brains to keep us from being bored all night long, so they replay us something we thought about, read about, saw, or we are about to see :biggrin:

 

[tittat]

i dont think dream has meaning in normal cases.
but i will say some exceptional cases.when i was sick some years ago.i had some anti biotic tables prescribed by the doctor.On that night i had a dream and it comes exactly true.
Iam not remembering the name of the medicine.But the medicine was for "severe fever",and for pain(pain because i was wounded).

 

[BentFX]

I can't believe that every dream is a message from God. Yet I am a Christian and haven't had a nightmare in the last twenty years. I do occasionally have dreams with off the hook evil monsters and stuff... I don't wake up scared!!!

Don't even come around getting all scary in my dreams! Your liable to drown in a swimming pool of tapioca, or get eaten by rabid schoolgirls