Dreaming

flickr*
Try as they would to stay awake and
prevent dreaming nightmares...they couldn't take it another minute...

This morning both Jim and I awakened with tales to tell each other about the totally bizarre dreams we had last night. I got up immediately and looked up the purpose of dreams on our friend, Google. This is an excerpt from the first article I ran into and I think it is interesting, fascinating, and fun to think about.

"With the advent of computers, it became fashionable to say that dreams are "clearing out the software" from a busy day, or that they are a form of "off-line" processing to save the good stuff and get rid of the useless. Aside from the fact that such theories show how susceptible our supposedly highest thinking is to the dominant technology of any given era, the problem with this theory of dream function is that very, very little in dreams deals with the events of the day. Often there is some little leftover from the day, first noticed by Freud and named "day residue," but the rest of the dream is a story that does not deal with actual events. The story is usually plausible and even mundane, and it often contains the most important people and concerns of our lives, but it is nonetheless a story.

We are thinking creatures because thinking is a valuable adaptation, but that doesn't mean that all forms of thinking have a function. Dreams at this moment in the collective findings of dream researchers seem to be a "throw-away" production, an off-hand story to while the night away. That judgment could be changed tomorrow by new and original studies by a new generation of young dream researchers, but right now the preponderance of the evidence weights against any physiological or psychological function for dreaming and dreams.

(Click here for a detailed refutation of the "problem-solving" theory of dreams.)

This doesn't mean that dreams have no "meaning," that they make no sense. To the contrary, dreams correlate with age, gender, culture, and personal preoccupations, as evidence on this site and in many research studies suggests.

"Meaning" has to do with coherence and with systematic relations to other variables, and in that regard dreams do have meaning. Furthermore, they are very "revealing" of what is on our minds. We have shown that 75 to 100 dreams from a person give us a very good psychological portrait of that individual. Give us 1000 dreams over a couple of decades and we can give you a profile of the person's mind that is almost as individualized and accurate as her or his fingerprints."these are some of the thoughts of G. Willam Domhoff. To read his complete article click here.

This sentence has me very worried about both Jim and me! "Dreams are very "revealing" of what is on our minds. We have shown that 75 to 100 dreams from a person give us a very good psychological portrait of that individual."

If this is true then our dreams absolutely must remain very private to protect our good names and reputations! (How's that for presumptuous assumptions?) All I can say is, over time is keep a close eye on both of us! And thanks, in advance, for any help you can give!

Are your nights spookier than your days? What is your take on dreaming?

flickr* places and faces have been changed to protect the innocent (you) from seeing what we really do look like when we sleep!