At the age of 14, I had a dream that I remember to this day. It did not differ in a special plot, but it remained in my memory all these years.
I wandered the endless corridors of an old, sinister mansion. Judging by the cobwebs that adorned the exquisite furniture, no one has lived there for a long time. Despite the abandonment, the house had electricity - many crystal lamps and chandeliers illuminated the gloomy interior decoration. I was anxious, but not scared. As the hero of a horror movie, I felt an inexplicable urge to explore everything, although fear took from the mere thought of what I might find. In the garage, I found a broken carriage. A table was laid in the dining room, but no one was sitting at it. All over the house I found more and more crystal lamps. There seemed to be thousands of them on my way.
And then I woke up.
Dreams have fascinated people since the beginning of time. In ancient Egypt, it was believed that people who had vivid dreams had a special gift. Many dreams were even recorded on papyrus. The Egyptians believed that the best way to receive divine revelation was to have a prophetic dream. Some even slept on special consecrated “dream beds” to learn the wisdom of the gods.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, scientists abandoned the idea of the supernatural. Mysticism was replaced by the teachings of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. These eminent researchers believed that dreams could provide insight into the depths of our minds. In his book The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud described in detail a complex system of dream analysis. The theory was based on the belief that while consciousness is in a state of sleep, the unconscious part of the mind creates images that reflect our deepest experiences.
Whether dreams predict the future, allow us to communicate with the gods, or simply help us better understand ourselves, dream analysis has always been highly symbolic. To understand the meaning of sleep, we need to decipher it as if it were written down with a secret code. An online dream book on dreammoods.com will tell you that an abandoned house means unfinished business, dim lamps mean emotional concerns, a laid table means instability in life, and a garage means uncertainties on the way to your goal. So it turns out that at the age of 14 I was worried about the uncertainty and instability in life.
But what if there is no secret code, and we were trying in vain to find meaning in random images? With the same success, people see clouds in the form of various objects. What if dreams don't really mean anything?
This is the conclusion that some neuroscientists have come to in our time. They believe that dreams are just a side effect of underlying neurological processes. Although people often think that the brain turns off during sleep, scientists today know that sleep is a period of intense neurological activity. We may be sleeping to enable the brain to collect and process memories. Just as a computer needs to periodically optimize its hard drive space, our brains need to constantly process the memories it receives. This process can be compared to cleaning - the unnecessary is swept out, and the important is carefully preserved. For example, studies have shown that after a good sleep, people remember what they learned the day before, but if sleep is interrupted, little remains in the memory. This is why parents and teachers advise children to get enough sleep before taking exams.
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Not all scientists agree with this, but many still believe that dreams are unplanned consequences of the neurological processes described above and similar to them. Harvard psychiatrists John Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley, for example, have suggested that nighttime activity in certain areas of the brain triggers sensations, emotions and memories, but they are completely random. It is human nature to seek meaning everywhere, so the brain combines nerve impulses into history. But it doesn't really mean anything. This is simply an attempt to make sense of the brain activity - which is why dreams seem so illogical and strange.
So why do people like reading dream books so much?
Perhaps this is due to the Barnum Effect, named after showman Phineas Barnum. In 1948, psychology professor Bertram Forer first demonstrated this effect in action: he invited 39 of his students to take a personality test. The subjects had no idea that each of them would get exactly the same results, containing statements such as "You really need other people to love and admire you" and "You tend to be critical of yourself." The students were then asked to rate on a five-point scale how accurate the descriptions of their personality were. The average match score was 4.3. Such a high score indicated that, despite the identity of the fake characteristics, the students found the test to be an almost ideal tool for analyzing their personality.
Over the next decades, Forer's experiment was repeated dozens of times: horoscopes, handwriting analysis, and, yes, the interpretation of dreams became the objects of study.
Barnum's “statements” are so easily taken on faith because of their flexibility in interpretation. While they seem specific, these characteristics suit just about everyone - almost like explaining my dream about a haunted house. Isn't each of us, to one degree or another, “emotionally responsive to the lack of balance and direction in life”? The same question can be asked about almost every symbol from the dream book. And again, if any of the interpretations can work for everyone, they might just as well not work for anyone.
However, some researchers believe that dreams do have a clear purpose and meaning. Scientists Tore Nielsen and Ross Levin have developed a theory that intersects the almost magical Freudian system of symbolic dream analysis and the belief that dreams are the product of completely random algorithms. Their theory, dubbed the "neurocognitive dream model," is, to put it mildly, difficult to understand and cannot be fully explained within the framework of this article. Although Nielsen and Lewin argue that dreams are closely related to the neurological processes of memory consolidation, they do not consider them arbitrary. On the contrary, they believe that the stories the brain tells through supposedly random dreams are dictated - at least in part - by our emotional state. For instance,as the number of negative events in real life increases, the likelihood of nightmares also increases. Perhaps this is why people with trauma are more likely to encounter them. According to the theory, one of the most important tasks of dreams is what Nielsen and Lewin call "banishing fear." For them, dreams help us cope with stress and calm down so that negative emotions bother us less during the day. When this system works flawlessly, dreams are created based on the stress and fear we experience. In a dream, negative emotions break down into components and are transformed into strange but mostly harmless stories that help to cope with inner experiences.that is why people with psychological trauma face them more often. According to the theory, one of the most important tasks of dreams is what Nielsen and Lewin call "banishing fear." For them, dreams help us cope with stress and calm down so that negative emotions bother us less during the day. When this system works flawlessly, dreams are created based on the stress and fear we experience. In a dream, negative emotions break down into components and are transformed into strange, but mostly harmless stories that help to cope with inner experiences.that is why people with psychological trauma face them more often. According to the theory, one of the most important tasks of dreams is what Nielsen and Lewin call "banishing fear." For them, dreams help us cope with stress and calm down so that negative emotions bother us less during the day. When this system works flawlessly, dreams are created based on the stress and fear we experience. In a dream, negative emotions break down into components and are transformed into strange, but mostly harmless stories that help to cope with inner experiences.so that negative emotions bother us less during the day. When this system works flawlessly, dreams are created based on the stress and fear we experience. In a dream, negative emotions break down into components and are transformed into strange, but mostly harmless stories that help to cope with inner experiences.so that negative emotions bother us less during the day. When this system works flawlessly, dreams are created based on the stress and fear we experience. In a dream, negative emotions break down into components and are transformed into strange, but mostly harmless stories that help to cope with inner experiences.
Although, according to the neurocognitive theory of dreams, the symbols from my dream about a haunted house do not have any individual or broad meaning that I could find in a dream book, but perhaps it has a general emotional connotation. Like many 14-year-olds, I tended to dramatize everything because of the stress I experienced as I grew up. These feelings were reflected in my dream.
So, even in a dream, it may not be possible to see the future, maintain contact with the other world or approach the depths of the unconscious, they can tell something about our emotions. Considering that many of us stop understanding our condition from time to time, this opportunity is very useful.
In other words, if you're having nightmares, it might be worth considering your emotional state and figuring out what you can do to improve it.
I would suggest closing the dream book first.
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