Dreams and code-breaking

[Kyriakos]

I have read around 100 pages of Freud's famous book on hermeneutics of dreams, and often examined some of my more vivid ones. It has been a while since i last bothered to though, mostly because i am lazy and also since my literature is filled with dream-like passages, which get analyzed anyway in the story.

But i was wondering if you ever try to explain ones you recall, and in what way do you do it. Are you of the view that dreams are something utterly immune to logical explanation? For i am certain on my part that they are not, being on the contrary filled with very specific meaning, which however is presented for one reason or other in the form of an enigma.

In a way therefore it seems to be like code-breaking, you have to know basic things about hermeneutics, and then proceed from there, with imagination and with the note that this enigma is especially linked to you, so it follows ways that have something to do with your own thought.

An example of this can be given from one of my own dreams.
In some sequence of it i spoke the somewhat enigmatic phrase, when i was asked if i would go to work now: "I will either work for five days, or after two years".

At first i was unable to understand what that meant, after i woke up. But then i noticed something. Five days (a week) is the amount of working days in most professions, and definitely in the profession i was after (academic teaching).
The "Two years" was trickier, but i recalled at length a famous book which is called "2 years of vacation", by Jules Verne. So the key here was 2 years= (time of) Vacation.
So if replaced with all that, you get the deciphered phrase in the dream:

"I will either work for five days ( = i will either work continuously, as if there were only working days) or after two years (= or after a vacation/prolonged pause).

 

[Silurian]

Is Freud still widely accepted

 

[ArneHD]

Is Freud still widely accepted

No, not in psychological circles anyway.

Personally I find that my dreams depend more or less on the mood I'm in when I go to sleep. If I am anxious when I go to sleep I dream that I am hiding from Aliens or some such.

 

[warpus]

In one of my dreams Lucy was riding Downtown like a horse around Chicago.

I'm not sure what that means, but it was a good dream.

 

[Kyriakos]

No, not in psychological circles anyway.

Personally I find that my dreams depend more or less on the mood I'm in when I go to sleep. If I am anxious when I go to sleep I dream that I am hiding from Aliens or some such.

It could be that his theory of sexuality is not that accepted now, but the examination of dreams is mostly a collection of thoughts of prior thinkers on dreams, so is pretty independent of Freud in many ways

As for aliens, dreams are prone to be symbolic and multi-dimensional, and "alien" in norwegian might have other meanings, such as in english it means both a supposed uknown entity from space, but also an illegal immigrant. Also words break up to more meaning in relation to what you personally associate them with.

 

[NetGear]

Imo dreams are just random brain signals you interpret while you sleep. Meaningless.

Though you could treat it like a rorschach test I suppose.

 

[Narz]

I love my dreams, they are so entertaining, like good movies taylor made just for me.

The only time I have unpleasant dreams is when I'm sick or extremely stressed in waking life.

 

[Skwink]

My dreams make as much sense as a Ballad of a Thin Man.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

Imo dreams are just random brain signals you interpret while you sleep. Meaningless.

Though you could treat it like a rorschach test I suppose.

How do you explain recurring and lucid dreams then?

 

[ArneHD]

It could be that his theory of sexuality is not that accepted now, but the examination of dreams is mostly a collection of thoughts of prior thinkers on dreams, so is pretty independent of Freud in many ways

That could well be true, but neither dream interpretation nor Freudian psychology are generally accepted as models or explanations for human behaviour for the most part. To my knowledge it has generally been superseded by behaviourist, cognitive and biological schools of psychology. Outside of formal research psychology and psychiatry, however, I have little knowledge of how Freudian psychology is regarded.

As for aliens, dreams are prone to be symbolic and multi-dimensional, and "alien" in norwegian might have other meanings, such as in english it means both a supposed uknown entity from space, but also an illegal immigrant. Also words break up to more meaning in relation to what you personally associate them with.

To clarify, it was a reference to a specific dream I had, where I was hiding from the Aliens from "Aliens". The general themes of my anxiety induced dreams seem to be the inevitability of death or failure in some venture. Powerlessness perhaps. It probably ties in with my depression.

 

[zjintz]

It could be that his theory of sexuality is not that accepted now, but the examination of dreams is mostly a collection of thoughts of prior thinkers on dreams, so is pretty independent of Freud in many ways

As for aliens, dreams are prone to be symbolic and multi-dimensional, and "alien" in norwegian might have other meanings, such as in english it means both a supposed uknown entity from space, but also an illegal immigrant. Also words break up to more meaning in relation to what you personally associate them with.

I went to psychoanalytic terapy and it worked for me.

I used to dream a lot about my bicycle getting stolen. For me the bicycle was some symbol of freedom because I go on it almost everywhere. So those dreams were pointing to some threaten to my freedom. Eventually those nightmares stopped after I solved some "internal conflicts".

 

[azzaman333]

Dreams do not have any deeper meaning unless you arbitrarily assign one.

 

[Till]

The dreams i actually remember tend to be the bad ones, and those are usually easily explained, as they relate to whatever problems, fears, and anxieties i am currently dealing with.

 

[Narz]

Imo dreams are just random brain signals you interpret while you sleep. Meaningless.

Though you could treat it like a rorschach test I suppose.

Dreams do not have any deeper meaning unless you arbitrarily assign one.

I don't know about arbitrary.

I agree that dreams probably don't have an objective meaning but there's no such thing as objective meaning anyway. If analyzing your dreams is fun for you or helps you in everyday life I think it's as decent a pasttime as any.

I have a hard time believing something like dreams would be totally random. Anything that's survived billions of years of evolution must have some purpose. If there only purpose was to help the brain reorganize itself why would we remember them?

 

[NetGear]

How do you explain recurring and lucid dreams then?

easy. just like rorschach test or looking at cloud, if you consciously put an effort to see something, you can make it out. lucid dream IMO is the same. random brain signal happens, you try to make sense of it, and your lucidity allows you to see what you want to see.

I have a hard time believing something like dreams would be totally random.

Well I dont think rorschach test is scientific, but maybe there is a reason why certain images pop up to a person and theres something psychological going on. And maybe theres a reason why someone dreams the things they do. I wouldnt bet on it though.

 

[Skwink]

If anyone would like to try to decode it, I had a dream last night where I was on some floating buildings, and there were lots of tanks there lead by Ben Linus, and I was trying to destroy them with an RPG. The only other thing I can remember from it was I was riding a bus with friends when the driver accidentally hit a girl I know from school. You could tell she died, I ran off the bus with a hand over my mouth, and when I woke I had a hand over my mouth.

 

[Rashiminos]

As I understand it, Carl Jung is probably a better source for material on dream interpretation than Freud (whose work was probably unduly biased by the subjects he based his theories on).