Dreams has been a mystery to science, philosophers and psychiatrists since the beginning of time. One of the founding fathers’ of dream interpretations was the psychologist Carl Jung. Jung believed that dreams were a window into the unconscious mind. His felt that while the person is sleeping, their unconscious mind is working on finding solutions to problems they face in their unconscous mind.
Article: How to Befriend Your Unconscious mind.
Sigmund Freud who was Jung’s teacher argued that dreams helped us better understand aspects of personality as they relate to pathology. Though most of his thoughts on human dream symbols where linked to our libido. Some have said that it might be our mind filtering cognitive junk out, though anybody how have recorded their dreams know that there might be something fishy behind all of it.
Interesting Facts about Dreaming:
- In ancient Egypt they believed very much in dreams and their symbols. Egyptian pharaohs were considered children of Ra (Egyptian sun god) and, thus, their dreams were seen as being divine.
- Lucid Dreaming is a technique that involves the dreamer to manipulate ones dream settings. The state of lucid dreaming or “lucidity” sometimes starts at the beginning of a dream. The dreamer understands that the experience is not occurring in physical reality, but in ones dream. Often this understanding is noticed once one is either floating, flying or meeting a deceased relatives. Learning how to lucid dream can be difficult as the person has to become mindful of there daily life and sleep life.
- In the Chinese province of Fu-Kein, people called on their ancestors for dream revelation by sleeping on graves.
Scientists suggest that the dreams of fetuses are mostly composed of sound and touch sensations, given the lack of visual stimuli in the womb.
Among the six dreams reported in the New Testament are the dreams that communicate divine knowledge, instruction, and warning to Joseph, husband of Mary, mother of Jesus. - About 80% of neonatal and newborn sleep time is REM sleep, suggesting a tremendous amount of time dreaming.
- According to Plato, dreams begins in the organs of the belly. Plato describes the liver in particular as the biological seat of dreams. Rene Descartes felt that the role of the pineal gland was considered the “seat of the soul”. This is a tiny organ in the center of the brain which all our thoughts are formed. It released a small amount of Dimethyltryptamine or DMT for short that gives us our dreams.
- Elias Howe (1819-1867) said one inspiration for his invention of the sewing machine came from a nightmare he had about being attacked by cannibals bearing spears that looked like the needle he then designed.
- It is virtually impossible to read or tell the time when you dream. What to know if you are dreaming? Then look at the clock as you dream. Clocks on the other hand change every time you look at it. You will notice in a lucid dream that the clock will tell a different time and the hands on the clock won’t appear to be moving as reported by lucid dreamers.
- Dream catchers are linked to our dreams. This unique feathered circle object over the rooms of homes play a vital roal in Native American culture. They believe that hanging this over you while you sleep will stop all bad dreams from entering your mind. It would be used as protection against the evil that might find you at night.
- Feeling stuck or unable to move is called Sleep Paralysis and is a completely normal experience. Sleep paralysis is a phenomenon in which an individual, either during falling asleep or awakening, briefly experiences an inability to move, speak, or react. It is a transitional state between wakefulness and sleep. It is often accompanied by terrifying hallucinations such as a witch on your back or people appearing to harm you. One can easily get out of this state by wiggling ones foot.
- Premonition or psychic dreams of actual cases have been reported. There are some strange cases where people actually dreamt about things which happened to them later, in the exact same ways they dreamed about. You could say they got a glimpse of the future, or it might have just been coincidence. Many people who record their dreams in a dream journal can crack the code using metaphors. The symbols in them are said to be metaphoric upside down mirrors. The fact remains that this is some seriously interesting and bizarre phenomena. Some of the most famous premonition dreams include:
- Abraham Lincoln dreamt of His Assassination the week before he was killed. He told is wife about the dream.
- Many of the victims of 9/11 and the Titanic had dreams warning them about the catastrophe
- Mark Twain’s dream of his brother’s demise
- Most humans forget 90% of their dreams the first minute they wake up. People who say they dont dream just haven’t strengthened their dream muscle yet. Once you force yourself to remember then it becomes easier as your dream unfolds like a book.
- An average human being spends 6 whole years of his/her life dreaming.
- Nightmares are usually related to unpreparedness, flying, falling, and public humiliation come from common human anxieties and seem to go much beyond cultural and socio-economic boundaries. These dreams of losing control might be linked to how we feel on an unconscious level.