Thread: Interpreting dreams-legit or BS?

This sounds like a job for...Burned up!

I doubt that dream-dictionaries have all the answers; maybe just for common things like teeth falling out or whatever.

Otherwise, they probably have to be interpreted by the dreamer, to relate them to their own experiences.

Altho we have found that even experienced interpreters may miss somethings, probably due to a lack of objectivity regarding their own dreams.

personal dream interpretation can be somewhat obvious if you write them down over a long period of time. it doesnt take a book to tell you that recurring dreams about a lost loved one might mean that you still miss them, or that you might regret never telling them something and your mind wants a second chance.

i think that while there may be some inherent symbolism in dreams, you know yourself better than any book telling you that a dream about untied shoes means you are sexually impotent does. i just take a step back and look at my dreams as a whole and only worry about the obvious things

Dream interpretation is pretty legit depending on how you go about doing it.

Dream dictionaries are worthless. Considering that dreams are encapsulating the memories, emotions, motivations, and all that encompasses the dreamer, a dictionary that lays out structural formula's to interpret these variables is really deterimental to the compelxity of the human mind.

I encourage dream interpretation as purported by Carl Jung and existentialists. Try posting a dream sometime and I'll keep an eye out for you to interpret it and show you how I would go about interpreting a dream.

As far as looking for literature, try "Man and His Symbols" by Carl Jung.
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Dream interpretation, as I see it, is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Let me start by saying that I don't believe dreams involve any sort of purposeful 'symbolism' created by your subconscious to 'tell you things'. I am not basing this on any specific science, just a gut feeling - the idea stinks of fantasy to me. Your sub-conscious is not a separate entity, it is simply the subroutines that you aren't aware of during normal consciousness.

Anyways, as far as I can guess, dreams seem to be largely based on your brain's world model and how your brain expects the world to work. Now, if you believe in dream symbolism deeply to the point where it percolates into your sub-conscious expectations of the significance of these symbols in the world, then when you dream about a related subject you are quite likely to incorporate this symbolism.

Essentially, if you were to convince yourself that gumballs signify death, then when you happen to have a dream involving death and your brain trawls through its world model to find suitable furniture, it would probably incorporate gumballs somehow. This is just by virtue of connecting the two concepts strongly enough that one calls up the other.

Obviously, if you don't know the symbolism, it doesn't make any sense to expect it to work - unless you're going to claim that untied shoes are naturally linked to impotency in all human brains. These symbols have to be built up by our culture and our beliefs, or maybe reading enough of these nonsense dream interpretation books

I could obviously be terribly wrong, but this is how I see it at the moment.

Originally Posted by thegnome54

Dream interpretation, as I see it, is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Obviously, if you don't know the symbolism, it doesn't make any sense to expect it to work - unless you're going to claim that untied shoes are naturally linked to impotency in all human brains. These symbols have to be built up by our culture and our beliefs, or maybe reading enough of these nonsense dream interpretation books

well it was mostly for illustrative purposes, but I think its a good guess to say that you knew that

Originally Posted by O'nus

Dream interpretation is pretty legit depending on how you go about doing it.

Dream dictionaries are worthless. Considering that dreams are encapsulating the memories, emotions, motivations, and all that encompasses the dreamer, a dictionary that lays out structural formula's to interpret these variables is really deterimental to the compelxity of the human mind.

I encourage dream interpretation as purported by Carl Jung and existentialists. Try posting a dream sometime and I'll keep an eye out for you to interpret it and show you how I would go about interpreting a dream.

As far as looking for literature, try "Man and His Symbols" by Carl Jung.
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Thanks man, I appreciate it. I plan on starting my own DJ soon, so do look out for me. I plan on becoming more active on here.

I did have a dream a couple of nights ago where I was in this very low security prison, and somehow accidentally escaped before realizing I had. I was only serving a one day sentence, so once outside I really wanted to go back in before they realized I was gone and I became a fugitive. While walking back in, the siren went off(indiciating someone had escaped) and I freaked out and woke up. The 'prison' looked oddly similar to my high school. I don't really remember what it looked like, only than I knew it looked similar.

That type of dream must have symbolism for me-as I completely hated my high school, and every day spent there was hell.

Originally Posted by thegnome54

Dream interpretation, as I see it, is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Let me start by saying that I don't believe dreams involve any sort of purposeful 'symbolism' created by your subconscious to 'tell you things'. I am not basing this on any specific science, just a gut feeling - the idea stinks of fantasy to me. Your sub-conscious is not a separate entity, it is simply the subroutines that you aren't aware of during normal consciousness.

Anyways, as far as I can guess, dreams seem to be largely based on your brain's world model and how your brain expects the world to work. Now, if you believe in dream symbolism deeply to the point where it percolates into your sub-conscious expectations of the significance of these symbols in the world, then when you dream about a related subject you are quite likely to incorporate this symbolism.

Essentially, if you were to convince yourself that gumballs signify death, then when you happen to have a dream involving death and your brain trawls through its world model to find suitable furniture, it would probably incorporate gumballs somehow. This is just by virtue of connecting the two concepts strongly enough that one calls up the other.

Obviously, if you don't know the symbolism, it doesn't make any sense to expect it to work - unless you're going to claim that untied shoes are naturally linked to impotency in all human brains. These symbols have to be built up by our culture and our beliefs, or maybe reading enough of these nonsense dream interpretation books

I could obviously be terribly wrong, but this is how I see it at the moment.

Interesting ideas. I can see how we could learn to associate different symbols as being meaningful after reading a dream dictionary. Are you studying psychology by any chance? A lot of what you talk about relates to many issues I've learned about as a psych major-particularly the idea of associationism.

Here's how it simply works:

The individual develops and begins to attach certain emotions to certain symbols or psychological schema's (scenario).

This symbolism that we develop as an individual manifests in dream content. The dream is not a third party entity but the sporadic activity of your memories rapidly projecting themselves into perception during unconsciousness.

Does that help explain...?
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Originally Posted by alwaysforward

Hey all,
I think the average person has some idea that dreams have hidden messages that apply to our lives, regardless of whether this is true or not. At the same time, I bet most people don't know much about lucid dreams.

I've seen dream interpretation books in bookstores, I imagine you all have. Y'know, the ones that analyze aspects of your dreams and tell you the symbolism inherent in them.

Lucid dreaming is pretty much a scientific fact. It undoubtedly exists. Going along the same lines, is dream interpretation BS or legit?

Dream interpretation is all BS. Pay no attention to anyone claiming to know how to do such a thing.

Originally Posted by Burned up

Dream interpretation is all BS. Pay no attention to anyone claiming to know how to do such a thing.

What kind of interpretation? Can you explain to me how exitential, jungian, or freudian dream analysis is BS?

I fervently oppose dream dictionaries, but not true psychological approaches. This is pretty much analogous to simply talking to a person and analyzing their sentences and choice of words.

Edit:
Example of dream interpretation at work in the current forum:
http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...792#post594792
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Personnel interpretations are not BS. I have had many dreams that have helped me gain perspective on issues in my life. The books however... well thats a different story... >.<

I believe dream interpretation is impossible without self reflection however.

Basically, our dreams are formed by half of our brain creating sensory experience, and the other half creating a story to explain it(or something like that; I'm basing this off of something read months ago in EWoLD and wouldn't be too suprised if the two parts at work aren't simply the two hemispheres of the brain). I don't know why dreams are made, after all, there is no agreed on reason, so I wouldn't know if there are any messages intended in dreams. However, you can learn a lot about someone from the stories that they tell, so it makes sense that you could learn a lot about yourself from your dreams. Therefore, it makes sense that you could learn something worthwhile by interpreting dreams that way.

However, traditional interpretations are for the most part, ridiculous. For an image or event to mean the same no matter what, either dreams would have to be created entirely by a single outside intelligence, or everybody would have to think in exactly the same way, and neither of those are true.

I think some dreams are just random signals flying out of the brain, to entertain us so we dont wake up maybe. However, other times, I think it is way to think about or express things that we either don't have time to think about or are too painful to think about when we are awake. We'll probably never know for sure.

Originally Posted by O'nus

What kind of interpretation? Can you explain to me how exitential, jungian, or freudian dream analysis is BS?

I fervently oppose dream dictionaries, but not true psychological approaches. This is pretty much analogous to simply talking to a person and analyzing their sentences and choice of words.

Edit:
Example of dream interpretation at work in the current forum:
http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...792#post594792
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Apologies to all, I was being very facetious. Anyone who has followed my posts will know I believe in interpretation, but only inasmuch that the meaning is personal and the interpretation tentative.

Yes, I take a Freudian/Jungian approach as I believe that the unconscious is active and immense compared with the conscious. When we sleep our (conscious) ego also sleeps so we become aware of unconscious processes manifest as images, sounds, feelings etc that we may associate with them.

Dream dictionaries are a useful starting point, although I rarely agree with their choice of meanings. Especially when they try to be predictive.