Recently, there have been more and more inquiries about dreams, but many people have many questions about dreams, and some people have added a lot of mystery to dream interpretation.
Dreams are always a combination of fantasy and reality. It is precisely because of the enchantment of dreams that they fascinate people. Just like the movie "Inception", it delves deep into layers of dreams and finally reaches a strange realm. However, this is the expression of film art, and real dreams accompany you every night. One day, you will want to understand them.
Six Misunderstandings about Dreams#
01. "Dreams are useless"#
"You say dreams are useless? I heard that dreams are for dealing with mental garbage."
Answer: Existence is reasonable. (Come and fight me)
People spend about 1/9 of their lives dreaming, but few people pay attention to their dreams. Just like my colleagues around me, they are tormented by trivial matters during the day and fall asleep as soon as they lie down at night. In the morning at seven or eight o'clock, before they have time to rub their sleepy eyes, they plunge into their busy work again. In this situation, if you ask them what dreams they had, they can only answer daydreams. Occasionally, they remember one or two dreams, but they just treat them as jokes.
Does that mean we have wasted this 1/9 of our time? Dreams are a kind of revelation, a slice of the mind, reflecting the connection between current reality and inner self. Dreams are like mirrors, through which we can see our inner selves.
02. "I never dream"#
"Humph! I never dream, how do you explain that?"
Answer: It's none of my business if you don't dream. Whatever.
As mentioned earlier, people spend about 1/9 of their time dreaming, and you are no exception. People usually have 6 to 9 dreams in one night, and not remembering them doesn't mean you didn't dream. The sleep process of a person is divided into four stages, from shallow to deep, and then from deep to shallow, gradually becoming more awake, but not waking up. Although the brain waves are the same as when you wake up, you are actually dreaming at this time.
This stage is called the rapid eye movement (REM) sleep stage because you can see your eyes moving rapidly under your eyelids. If you wake up at this time, you will say that you were dreaming.
Let me tell you secretly, your eyes also move when you close them and imagine things.
03. "Dreams affect sleep"#
"I had a long and tiring dream today. Can't I dream anymore?"
Answer: No, you can't. (Hahaha)
Many people believe that dreams affect sleep because whenever they remember a dream in the morning, they feel particularly tired. Perhaps the reality is just the opposite. It is because your sleep is not good and you are in a shallow sleep stage that you remember your dreams. We always like to find scapegoats, but dreams are not to blame.
However, there is no complete conclusion on the impact of dreams on sleep. Nightmares can wake you up, and pleasant dreams can make you feel comfortable and sleep better. But we don't know exactly how it works. Perhaps life cannot always be smooth sailing.
04. "Dreams always have a meaning"#
"I dreamt that a dog bit me. Does that mean I should be careful when going out?"
Answer: If a dog bites you, it's because I let it. (Woof!)
There are indeed dreams that have symbolic meanings, but don't get too excited too soon. This situation is very rare. Scientifically speaking, there is no evidence for the phenomenon of dreams having supernatural predictive power. In ancient times, dreams were indeed used for divination, referring to the Book of Changes and interpreting dreams accordingly. As science gradually developed, divination also declined. Modern scientific dream interpretation is based on psychoanalysis and other psychological analysis methods.
There is also a type of dream that predicts the future. For example, in the morning, you glanced at a coin in front of the door without paying much attention. When you had a good rest after a tiring day and had a dream that there was a coin in front of the door, you felt surprised and got up to search, and indeed found a coin. So you called today's dream a "wealth dream".
This is just the subconscious's keen perception. You had seen that coin a long time ago but didn't pay much attention to it and forgot about it early. However, the subconscious mind recorded everything without missing a single detail, so the dream occurred.
05. Misunderstandings about Dream Interpretation#
"Dreaming about losing teeth means that a loved one will die, right?"
Answer: Please beat up the person who told you this until their teeth fall out, maybe they will dream about losing teeth tonight. (Laughs)
Many people treat dream interpretation as a treasure trove, but you might as well just go to Baidu (a popular search engine in China).
Zhou Gong's dream interpretation summarized the symbolic meanings of dreams into a dictionary, which created the concept of dream interpretation. It is just a form of statistical big data, and it does not necessarily apply to individuals.
I can say that most people like money, but I cannot say that everyone likes money. Zhou Gong's classical dream interpretation method is not applicable to individuals and to some extent reflects the habits and thinking of ancient people.
If you dream of durian, you won't find it in Zhou Gong's book. You think durian smells good, but he thinks it smells bad. So, are the durians in your dreams the same thing? Obviously not. Dreams are individual dreams, influenced by the environment and culture, but closely related to the individual's personal experiences.
06. "Dreams are the opposite"#
"Dreaming of losing money means I will make a lot of money today, because dreams are the opposite, right?"
Answer: No, you are wrong again.
Dreams have a balancing effect and can stabilize your emotions. When you feel happy, you may dream of unhappy things, and when you feel scared, you may dream of things that make you happy. Dreams constantly maintain a state of balance to maintain individual stability, after all, the dream creator is yourself. So in this sense, dreams are the opposite.
But if someone says that dreams are always the opposite, they have a premise, which is that they believe dreams have predictive power. From the fourth point, we know that dreams do not have much predictive power, so this argument is invalid.
From the perspective of feelings, dreams and reality are connected through emotions. The feelings in dreams are the same as the feelings in reality. Therefore, dreams and reality are consistent.
Although some of these statements are misunderstandings, they contain people's curiosity and continuous desire to explore dreams. It is precisely because of this spirit that we can continue to develop and approach dreams, and better understand the language of dreams. ^_^