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Feature Article:
Michael S. Franklin,
Introduction
Although Freud (1900) proposed that dreaming and, specifically, the meaningful content of dreams are related to mental functioning, the tenuous and misunderstood nature of dreams has made the proposition of empirically providing support for, or falsifying, this claim very problematic. The inability to study the effects of dreams on mental functioning has forced many researchers to view dreams as the result of random neural activity (e.g., the activation-synthesis hypothesis; Hobson and McCarley, 1977). If postulations regarding the random nature of dreams are indeed true, then it becomes challenging to construct a theory of how the phenomenology of the dream state could serve a functional role and be better understood through an evolutionary analysis.
However, recent research, to be discussed in this paper, which takes into account the physiological mechanisms underlying sleep and dreams, the content of dreams, and the environmental conditions of selection, points toward the natural selection of dreaming as a state of consciousness which has persisted across the development of the human species. This tends to suggest that the dream state was selected for as an adaptation which increases overall fitness. The leading theory addressing the adaptive qualities of dreaming uses the concept of virtual threat, defined as a dream-state wherein a threatening situation is constructed virtually, and explains that through the rehearsal of various threatening scenarios we may be better equipped to handle real-world threats (Revonsuo, 2000).
While this theory offers a plausible evolutionary account of dreaming, the goal of the current paper is to extend the theoretical underpinnings of this hypothesis by commenting on other fitness-enhancing aspects of dreams and the broader influence of dreaming in the evolution of higher mental functioning.
The Subjective Nature of Dreams
The nature of the dream-state is highly subjective and a truly personal experience making the scientific analysis of dreaming somewhat prohibitive. Dreams often contain material that is nonsensical and challenging to interpret rationally, making the characterization of dreams from an objective point of view a perplexing task. While we all dream (though see Solms, 1997, for an example of neuropsychological patients who do not dream), there is incredible variability in the subjective dream experience (Hall and Van de Castle, 1966; Spadafora and Hunt, 1990). Some people rarely remember their dreams and erroneously conclude that they do not dream at all (a condition discussed by Freud, 1900), while others experience vivid dreams with rich visual imagery and emotional content. Sometimes, the story-lines that make up people's dreams follow a tight narrative and have a relatively smooth transition from scene to scene, while at other times dreams appear as illogical and haphazard associations lacking a coherent sense of flow.
Some people have full control of their dreams, exerting conscious control over the supposedly random events which typify dreaming (Laberge, Levitan, Dement, 1986), while others are mere bystanders watching the events unfold without any sense of agency approximating waking volition. With the multiplicity of dream dynamics, it is no surprise that there are differing views on the nature of dreams, as a researcher's views on dreaming may directly relate to their own subjective experience of dreaming (Potter, 1996).
Despite this subjective nature of dreams, an evolutionary analysis of dreams should not be disregarded and considered outside the realm of scientific inquiry (although for a competing view see Thompson, 2000). Since the cognitive revolution, psychology and other disciplines have made significant progress in developing and implementing methodologies meant to reveal truths about the mental processes underlying our subjective experiences (Miller, 2003). For example, the tools of cognitive neuroscience have allowed neuro-imaging data to inform our theories of cognition (Kandell and Squire, 2000). It is not unreasonable to think that these methods will one day allow for a correlation to be established between certain patterns of brain activity and corresponding dream content, not unlike how current technology now allows accurate prediction of information from subjective experiences.
As an example, neuro-imaging evidence can provide information to distinguish between lower-level sensory experiences (e.g., the experience of visual vs. auditory stimuli) as well as higher-level perceptual experiences (e.g., visual processing of a face stimulus vs. a house stimulus; O'Craven and Kanwisher, 2000). In this vein, it is important to approach the study of dreams in a scientific fashion, not biased by our own subjective dream experiences, but rather by letting our theories rest on scientifically collected data. Towards this aim of objective and scrutinizing scientific inquiry, below we present data concerning the function of dreaming.
REM Sleep and Dreaming
One of the first and most important findings in the history of research on dreams and dreaming is that which relates the phenomenon of dreaming and the physiological occurrence of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep (Dement and Kleitman, 1957). While dreaming refers to "the subjective conscious experiences that we have during sleep" (Revonsuo, 2000, p.878), REM sleep is a physiologically-defined stage of sleep. It has been established that dreaming does occur during REM sleep through the collection of dream reports from subjects awoken from REM sleep, though the same is true for non-REM sleep (NREM; Hobson, 1988). Rather than being a static process, sleep contains a number of discrete states defined by various physiological measures (Rechtschaffen and Kales, 1968).
The use of electroencephalography (EEG), electro-oculography (EOG), and electromyography (EMG) has proven useful in distinguishing between arousal states during sleep, by measuring brain activity, eye movements, and muscle activity, respectively. As we sleep, our brain passes through various stages in a cyclical manner. Some of these stages are characterized by slow brain activity and other stages occur in which the electrical activity of the brain mimics the waking brain, and can even be considered hyperactivated. This specific, hyperactive stage of sleep is known as REM sleep and has three characteristics that define it: 1) The brain is more active than while in other stages and the EEG consists of alpha and beta activity, similar to waking, 2) Muscle activity is actively inhibited within the central nervous system in order to promote paralysis, and 3) Eye-movements occur during REM sleep because the muscle paralysis does not extend to the eye muscles.
A link between REM sleep and dreaming has been established through various experimental studies (Hobson, 1988). First, it is known that people awakened from REM sleep as opposed to NREM sleep are significantly more likely to produce dream reports and these reports are likely to be more detailed and vivid than NREM dream reports. Also, evidence implicating REM sleep with dreams appears when REM sleep mechanisms malfunction. Normally during REM sleep, signals that elicit all motor output (except for eye movements) are actively inhibited. Disorders that naturally occur in humans and lesions in other species that damage the inhibitory response can result in physically acting out dreams while asleep (Sforza, Krieger, Petiau, 1997). Further, humans can give a verbal report to substantiate the correspondence of dream actions to waking actions (Ferini-Strambi and Zucconi, 2000).
Other species cannot provide information about mental processes during sleep, so controversy surrounds the question of whether or not animals are dreaming during REM sleep. One perspective is that animals such as cats, which display threat-induced posturing and appear startled by invisible objects while in REM sleep, have a reason to produce such behavior. The reason is linked to their perception of information relevant to these displays without actual corresponding sensory information. In fact, studies using electrophysiological measures to record activity in hippocampal place cells indicate that rats which have spent a considerable amount of time during the day running through amaze show activation of the same place cells during REM sleep which were active during maze running (Louie and Wilson, 2001; Wilson and McNaughton, 1994). These data point towards the possibility that dreaming serves some type of rehearsal function, allowing animals to practice the activities performed while awake, namely running through the maze.
However, we will never know if the subjective experience of dreaming is the same for these animals as it is for humans, as we will also never truly know if another person's subjective dream experience is similar to our own. Just as behaviorists concluded the human mind was a 'black box' incapable of scientific study (Watson, 1913), there is a tendency to assume that we will never be able to gain an understanding of animals' mental states and that any attempt is simply anthropomorphism. However, the neurophysiological evidence mentioned above makes plausible the claim that during REM sleep these animals are experiencing something similar to what people call dreaming, with the caveat that the dream experience will be specific to the perceptual and cognitive abilities of the animal.
While there is a strong correlation between REM sleep and dreaming, it is also clear that dreaming can occur outside of REM sleep, and similarly, instances of REM sleep without dreaming are also feasible (Hobson, 1988; Solms, 1997). An analysis of dream content suggests that there are systematic differences between REM and NREM dream reports (Hobson, Pace-Schott, Stickgold, 2000). This data indicates that just as sleep is not a static unitary process, but rather made of discrete stages, the cognitive processes that take place throughout the sleep cycle, and that are normally uniformly called dreams, differ and can result in different classes of dreams (Fosse, Stickgold, Hobson, 2004). Dreams that occur during NREM sleep lack vivid imagery and, while they may contain themes similar to REM dreams, they often consist of a simple recurring theme.
For the purpose of this paper we will concentrate on the types of dreams that are normally reported when subjects are awakened from REM sleep. From this perspective, it is possible to make a stronger inference that certain physiological mechanisms of REM sleep influence dreaming. Specifically, activation can be examined in forebrain areas that are more likely to be informative for a cognitive theory of dreaming, and are claimed to selectively influence dreaming without affecting REM sleep (Solms, 2000). This is not to say that we are unconscious outside of REM while sleeping and that NREM dreams are not also of potential interest, rather, it is argued that the type of consciousness that mostly occurs during REM sleep is of special interest and represents a prototypical dream.
Since we currently lack the technology to achieve a highly detailed understanding of the physiological correlates of dreaming, a logical starting point is to use existing technologies to acquire data during REM sleep, in order to see how they can inform a theory of dreaming.
Theories of Dreaming
The theory of dreaming most generally accepted, which offers an explanation of dreaming based on the physiology of REM sleep, is Hobson and McCarly's (1977) activation-synthesis hypothesis.
According to this hypothesis, dreams are the result of the forebrain responding to random activity initiated at the brainstem. This is demonstrated by the PGO waves that occur during REM sleep. Specifically, PGO refers to the pons, where the activity originates; the lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus, which is the area through which sensory information passes; and occipital areas, where visual information is processed.
According to Hobson and McCarly (1977), this random activity, or noise, emanating from the pons, passes through similar sensory-relay stations as information from the environment, and is interpreted in a way that leads to the phenomenology of dreaming. Overall, this theory has received general support for some time because it fits well with physiological data and its explanation of dreaming appeals to a majority of peoples' dream experiences, again, being somewhat haphazard and random. This theory posits that the bizarre nature of dreams is attributed to certain parts of the brain attempting to piece together a story out of what is essentially random information.
The activation-synthesis theory does make intuitive sense, based not only on how we generally remember and report information from dreams, but also on how difficult it is to piece together memories of a dream upon waking. Neuropsychological evidence points towards our tendency to confabulate stories that we believe to be true in order to fit together disparate pieces of information (Gazzaniga, 1985). If true, however, the supposedly random information that leads to dreaming would weaken the evolutionary analysis presented here. If there is no bias towards a particular type of information processed during REM sleep, then it becomes hard to imagine how dreaming could be selected for in an evolutionary context. Specifically if there is no rhyme or reason with regards to the content that makes up dreams, it becomes difficult to understand the advantage of experiencing such a haphazardly concocted virtual dream environment.
A more detailed analysis of dream content and the relation between REM sleep and dreaming, however, demonstrates that the activation-synthesis theory is incomplete (Domhoff, 2000b). Although dreams tend to be rather bizarre, they are certainly not as disjointed as would be the case if this hypothesis were unilaterally true. In fact, large samples of dream reports from numerous studies point toward the fact that individuals see the majority of dreams as realistic and containing a connected storyline (Foulkes, 1985; Snyder, 1970; Domhoff, 2000a). This is something which should not occur if the information processed in dreams is truly random. Likewise, to be discussed below, certain information is differentially represented in dreams (Hall and Van de Castle, 1966).
Additional neuropsychological evidence reveals that the brainstem mechanism, which is a key ingredient in activation-synthesis theory, is not necessary for dreams to occur. Rather, work by Solms (1997, 2000) points towards the forebrain region as being crucial in the generation of dreams. If there is reason to believe that dreaming is not just the random processing of information, but instead there is some pattern to the types of themes present in dreams and the possibility that dreams can consist of cohesive storylines, then it seems logical to investigate why these patterns exists and what purpose they serve. Before delving into these details on the functional aspects of dreaming, it is necessary to briefly describe more about the phenomenology of dreaming and how this could be reflected in the brain.
Mental Rehearsal
It can be assumed that the brain is optimally designed for the processing of "real- world" sensory information, so that we can react in appropriate manner when confronted with environmental stimuli. Despite this fact, a large portion of mental life consists not of the processing of actual information, but rather the rehearsal of what to do when we encounter stimuli from the environment (Klinger, 1978). This rehearsal and the cognitive skills involved are likely to have a strong adaptive value.
Present neuro-imaging data suggests that this "non-real" information, or information not tied to any current environmental stimuli, is treated in a similar fashion as information processed in a real physical environment. Data from a neuro-imaging study, specifically using positron emission topography (PET), supports the notion that when we imagine something of a visual nature and manipulate that image, our visual cortex is activated (Kastner et al., 1999). Likewise, in studies that control for actual movement, it has been shown that by simply imagining the actions involved in a repetitive motor task, the physical representation of the associated pattern of activity in the motor cortex increases (Pascual-Leone et al., 1995).
A question, then, is why would mental imagery of a physical activity activate the same brain regions as the activity itself? This double-activation would make sense if mental imagery reflects exercise/practice for the brain (or if imagining a thing and "really" doing a thing are not as distinct as many assume they are). By being able to practice a response, or exercise a part of the brain without having to physically experience a behaviour-eliciting stimulus (especially one that is potentially dangerous), we can optimize mental functioning and, ultimately, our response to an actual situation (Cumming and Hall, 2003). It is well known that mental imagery techniques greatly facilitate multiple aspects of performance from sports to music (e.g., Feltz and Landers, 1983). Further, the most successful individuals at creative endeavors are usually those that have the best imagery skills (Intons-Peterson, 1993). Thus, it appears advantageous to be able to create vivid representations in the mind's eye of various scenarios, which in fact, is what dreaming entails.
Threat Rehearsal
When awoken abruptly from a terrifying nightmare, it is easy to understand the strength dream imagery has in generating both physiological and cognitive responses. In the case of a nightmare, heart rate is accelerated, sweating occurs, and a general feeling of fear and anxiety can extend for some time after the dream has finished (Mellman et al., 1985).
Even though dreams are a form of mental representation, in the sense that perception is not tied to stimuli in the environment, they are generally experienced as real and the content is perceptually indistinguishable from waking perception (Freud, 1900).
If merely imagining an event has the power to better prepare us for an actual event by physically activating comparable brain regions, then it should follow that the more realistic the simulation of events, the more the brain treats the information as real. Also, if this capacity to simulate an environment allows us to be optimally prepared to deal with challenges in a real environment, it should affect fitness and be naturally selected for across generations (Darwin, 1995). The threat-simulation hypothesis of dreaming argues that this is the purpose of dreams and the reason why dreaming has evolved (Revonsuo, 2000). It is suggested by this theory that dreams serve the purpose of allowing for the rehearsal of threatening scenarios in order to better prepare an individual for real-life threats. This is supported by evidence from dream reports to be discussed below.
An Evolutionary Perspective
In order to evaluate the threat simulation theory of dreaming (of the kind found in REM sleep), it is useful to discuss it in an evolutionary context, and consider whether dreaming meets the necessary requirements of evolution by natural selection; namely, genetic variation, inheritance, and differential fitness. As for the first condition, there is evidence that REM sleep is genetically varied between and within species. REM sleep seems to be exclusive to placental and marsupial mammals (Winson, 1993). This suggests a particular phylogeny of dreaming, and that there was some point in time in which this characteristic was acquired and further spread to evolving species. Also, the amount of REM sleep placental and marsupial animals tend to require varies in a shared manner throughout their life cycle (Siegel, 1995), pointing towards an underlying genetic control over dreaming.
Likewise, different physiological processes occurring during REM must have undergone processes of natural selection. Consider disorders in which people physically act out their dreams, and the potential dire consequences that could result from such disorders. Those who acted out their dreams may have put themselves at great risk. As the trait of physical inhibition during dreaming varies in humans, those individuals with the trait which inhibits paralysis during REM sleep seem to have been predominately removed from the current dreaming population, indicating also that the second condition of inheritance is satisfied.
When considering the third proposition of the differential fitness of dreaming in modern humans, it is important to understand the environment in which selection was occurring.
Our human ancestors faced a number of challenges posed by interactions with conspecifics within and between groups (Foley, 1989), as well as in procuring food and protecting themselves from predators (Kaplan and Hill, 1985). In this environment, the ability to most efficiently react when a real threat is apparent would obviously confer a survival advantage. Evidence from mental imagery and dream studies suggest that rehearsal in the dream is treated as a real threat and, therefore, those individuals with these imagery skills to rehearse threatening scenarios should have an improved ability to deal with threat, making them more likely to be the progenitors of offspring. Through the survival and procreation of their offspring, this ability of, and propensity towards, imagery would be differentially passed on to future generations.
If dreaming was selected for because of its adaptive function, the general content of dreams should certainly reflect this, and consist of situations that allow the rehearsal of scenarios that ultimately lead toward increased fitness. This is exactly what is seen, with studies indicating that dream content is biased toward negative elements reflecting threat, as opposed to positive elements. Data collected from over 500 dream reports by Hall and Van de Castle (1966) indicate that about 80% contained negative emotions, while only about 20% contained positive emotions. These negative dreams are also disproportionably likely to contain threatening elements such as animals and male strangers in threatening encounters. The evidence points towards the overrepresentation of threatening events in dreams, which should not occur if dream content is random.
Through appropriating and learning to deal with these threats in dreams, it is proposed here that an animal could increase its overall evolutionary fitness.
Beyond Threat Simulation While Revonsuo (2000) limits his argument to the effectiveness of dreams in preparing for real-world threats, it is our goal now to extend this argument. We propose that the fitness-enhancing benefits of dreaming is not restricted to threat rehearsal, and the evolution of other higher-order cognitive faculties has been strongly influenced by a dreaming mechanism. By commenting on other fitness-enhancing aspects of the phenomenology of dreaming, besides threat, it also becomes possible to integrate our theory with portions of Hobson and McCarley's (1977) activation-synthesis hypothesis, with particular regards to their view on the random information that leads to dreaming.
While dream content is not completely random, as demonstrated by the fact that there tends to be an over-representation of negative affect (Hall and Van de Castle, 1966; Merrit et al., 1994)) and social interactions (Kahn et al., 2002), there still is a great deal of variability and randomness observed in dream content. We argue that this variability is likely due to activation propagated from the brainstem, and that this noise in the system is beneficial. The advantages of having noise as a crucial factor in a dream-generation mechanism could be likened to the benefits of genotypic variability in the evolution of species (cf., Darwin, 1995). Given an unpredictable and variable environment variability in traits increases the possibility that a certain trait will randomly confer an advantage under certain circumstances, this being the crux of Darwin's theory of natural selection.
In dreams, the potential advantage of noise and variability in the system allows for a broad range of scenarios to be simulated and new scenarios to be created rather than having the same type of dream occur repeatedly. This concept relates to ideas discussed by Kahn, Combs, and Krippner (2002), in terms of stochastic resonance which they contend prevents mental activity from perseverating, which allows for novel situations to be developed through the presence of noise in the system.
Aside from our theory being in a state of consonance with theories of both activation-synthesis and threat-simulation, we also contend that increased fitness is not limited to situations of threat rehearsal and that the information processing occurring in dreams should be similarly represented in the brain as is waking cognition. This is the case because if sleeping and waking cognition are quite different, then rehearsing threatening situations in a dream may not transfer into the ability to better handle similar situations in waking life.
However, evidence from lucid dream studies (described below) indicate that tasks such as counting and singing during a dream, which should activate the left and right hemispheres, respectively, do just that. When a person is singing in a dream, their right hemisphere is more active, and conversely when a person counts, the left hemisphere becomes more activated (LaBerge and Dement, 1982). A more recent PET study demonstrated that subjects trained on a serial reaction time task showed task-related increases in brain activity during REM sleep which was correlated with improved performance on the task after sleep (Maquet et al., 2000).
Also, from a neuropsychological perspective, evidence comparing bizarre dream cognition with certain psychopathology indicates another link between brain activity in dreams and waking. For example, people who suffer from damage to frontal and temporal brain areas typically report the misidentification of faces during waking life, a condition known as Fregoli syndrome. Some research has indicated that a decrease of activity in these regions, reported from neuro-imaging studies in sleep, correspond to similar reports of misidentification during dreaming (Schwartz and Maquet, 2002). So, the functional architecture of our brains similarly influences both sleep and waking cognition and perception, supporting the idea that neurophysiological correlates of cognition appear stable across the two forms of consciousness.
Situated Cognition in Dreams
While the above argument points towards the similarity between thoughts while dreaming and in waking life, clearly there is a difference in how the two states are experienced and the type of cognition occurring in each. As discussed earlier, for the majority of time spent dreaming, we accept as real even the most bizarre scenarios, and are able to make rationalizations allowing us to treat the dream as real.
Generally speaking, we are fooled into accepting a dream experience as a real experience, until we awake and reflect on the content of the dream. This indicates a general deficit in certain aspects of executive functioning (e.g., deficits in planning, monitoring, attention switching, etc.), including skills relating to critical-thinking and our ability to access specific types of memories.
While dreaming, an effect of the general deficit in executive functioning is that our cognitive machinery becomes fully engrossed in perceptions and goal-states directly relevant to perceptions of the dream. This has a considerable resemblance to the idea of situated cognition, in which cognition is tied to the moment and restricted to satisfying goals pertaining to current concerns (also, perceptual narrowing has been shown in alternate contexts within the rubric of the threat-rigidity effect, proposed by Staw, Sandelands, and Dutton, 1981). It can be argued that all non-human cognition is situated, and that it is the ability to extend thinking beyond the here-and-now of perception and motivation that makes human cognition unique (Bogdan, 1997).
It has even been hypothesized that what humans currently experience during REM sleep shares a similarity to waking consciousness in early hominid brain evolution (Panksepp, 1998). Jaynes (1976) takes this idea even further by arguing that there was a time, roughly 3000 years ago, when humans lacked consciousness and acted in a way that parallels the situated nature of dream consciousness.
This situated aspect of dreaming also makes sense from an evolutionary perspective and further supports aspects of the threat-simulation theory. While it is advantageous to rehearse situations that are subjectively deemed as threatening, it is equally disadvantageous to come across a threatening scenario in real life and invest the time required to wonder whether or not that situation is real. Therefore, in order for this dream mechanism to be selected for, an important aspect of its initial selection is that the perceived threats encountered during a dream must be experienced as a real. This means that certain higher-order mental processes, which would function to appraise the situation in an intellectual fashion (mostly frontal areas), would likely have to be deactivated, which research indicates is the case (Mazur, Pace-Schott, Hobson, 2002).
In most dreams there are deficits in the ability to solve complex problems. Evidence from fMRI studies during REM sleep, show that there is a decrease in activity of the prefrontal cortex, which would normally be associated with a decrease in executive functioning (Mazur et al., 2002). Specifically, it has been found that there is a decrease in activity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during REM sleep. This cortical region of the brain is crucial for tasks that require us to switch from our current line of thinking and inhibit a task once initiated. The deactivation of this region during a dream-state makes intuitive sense, in that for most dreams even very bizarre scenarios are normally accepted without on and we generally just go with the flow of the dream. We can visit with people who have passed away or interact with those whom we have not seen in years and yet this normally does not stop the dream from continuing or cause us to come to the conclusion that we are dreaming.
Social Cognition in Dreams
While the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex appears to be inhibited during REM, there is not a uniform deactivation of the frontal regions in the brain during states of dreaming. For example, there is a consistent increase in activity of the anterior cingulate in REM sleep (Braun et al., 1997). The anterior cingulate is a medial frontal region implicated in such functions as decision-making, conflict resolution, social cognition, and social judgment tasks which probe a subject's theory of mind (TOM) and requires subjects to take into account the intentions and mental states of others (Devinsky, Morrell, Vogt, 1995). In fact, recent studies link activation of the anterior cingulate with capacities of a TOM module (Vogeley et al., 2001). These data suggest that aspects of cognition centering on the processing of social information are strongly activated during REM sleep.
This is particularly interesting since it is thought that our complex social interactions and the information processed in the social domain played an integral role in the development of primate's mental capacities (Whiten and Byrne, 1988). If these pathways are active during REM sleep and this type of information is being rehearsed, then it should function to effectively strengthen the effects that processing of social information has on mental development. Further supporting this role is the tendency for a large proportion of dreams to contain other people and represent various social situations (Kahn et al., 2002).
Another example of a skill that has arguably played a pivotal role in other functional aspects of the human intellect and could serve to be shaped by dreaming is that of interpretation. As discussed by Bogdan (1997, p.108), "…key advances in interpretation, such as the recognition of belief, were accelerated by increased opportunities to interact with or manipulate subjects and slowed down by a lack of such opportunities." As such, via teasing, play, mental rehearsal/imagery, or dreaming, the individual is given the opportunity to utilize successful strategies in dealing with these situations and further develop interpretive skills. In fact, studies of children's dream-reports indicate that their dreams more often contain family members and close friends than adults' dreams (Hobson, 1988), possibly due to the fact that it is more important for younger children to e practicing close interpersonal skills than it is for adults.
It, however, could be argued that the rehearsal of social situations would not play a significant role in increasing one's fitness. In order to address this claim, it is necessary to comment on the potential benefits of being socially sophisticated. First, in terms of pure survival value, those individuals who best interact with those around them, i.e., those who interact without interpersonal conflict and confrontation, will likely have better access to resources in their social group, be it mates or food (Foley, 1989). There is wide variation between cultures in the types of traits that render an individual fit, and what makes humans a successful species is that our ability to deal with the social environment that we are thrust into is not completely pre-wired (Sapir, 1921; Whorf, 1956). Those individuals that could use feedback from the environment to effectively modify their social interactions would be best off, as individual groups often have particular social nuances.
Also, clearly in our own species, the traits we have which help us deal with social situations vary greatly and under certain circumstances can be beneficial, while at other times potentially put us at risk. Due to the variable fitness of particular behaviors at particular times, we need to be adept at interpreting cultural standards when interacting with others. For example, one cultures "alpha male" could potentially be ostracized in another culture. This newly ostracized individual would be less likely to obtain mates, and would be less competitive for the resources that would influence his survival. Therefore, something that could tip the scale in allowing someone to best deal with important social interactions would likely be selected for over time.
Flanagan (2000) raises the potential criticism that dreams do not give us an accurate representation of ourselves and conspecifics, positing that there is no advantage conferred in dreams by rehearsing various social interactions. He claims that the development of a TOM module based on dreamed social interactions would be flawed, and that accurate depictions of others and ourselves is the exception rather than the rule while dreaming.
While we do not disagree that in dreams ourselves and others often act in a surprising and atypical manner, overall our representation of those we know is quite impressive and accurate. From their visual appearance, to the tone of voice, to the style of speaking, by virtue of the fact that we recognize and interact with those we know in the dream-world, we have an amazing ability to unconsciously recreate dream characters from those people with which we typically interact (above and beyond any verbal description that we could give of that person). While we surely cannot say a dream character's behavior is how that person would act in 'real life,' we also know that there is no way to accurately predict how that person will behave when encountering a new situation in real life. In waking life, the best that we can do is interpret overt cues and then attempt to understand a person's intentions and predict their actions, for which dreams offer such a venue.
Dream Ontogeny
While the social aspects of dreaming offer insight into the socio-developmental benefits of dreams, so does an examination of the ontogeny of sleep and dreaming. Multiple facets of our mental development are ontogenetically scheduled (Bertenthal, 1996). For example, at about nine months of age it is apparent that infants acquire the new skill of treating others as intentional beings (Trevarthen, 1979). Other mental capacities also begin to develop within a predictable timeline, a universal characteristic of the human species and occurring independent of culture. Likewise, the architecture of sleep cycles follows a specific ontogeny that is consistent to humans as a species (Frank and Heller, 2003).
REM sleep occurs most frequently in newborns, and decreases throughout the lifespan. Newborns can spend about eight hours a day in REM sleep, and REM sleep actually occurs at sleep onset (Winson, 2002). In contrast, as we age, sleep onset is characterized by stages of NREM sleep, followed by REM sleep in less amounts. By the age of three, REM sleep is reduced to about three hours a day and continues to decline throughout the lifespan.
Why is REM sleep such a prominent brain state in the developing brain? One answer to this question follows from the previous argument as to the potential function of dreams, i.e., a virtual rehearsal mechanism. It is well known that children, and even other species, suffer detrimental effects when raised in impoverished environments (Joseph, 1999). The converse is also true. Infants raised in environments with rich amounts of information show increased cognitive skills at an earlier age, and this can even extend throughout the lifespan (Diamond, 1988); an enriched environment during the development of the nervous system optimizes its functionality.
As mentioned above, all evidence points toward the notion that virtual environmental stimuli are treated in essentially the same way as real stimuli from the environment. Therefore, it would make adaptive sense for an organism that is young and still developing to experience the most rich and vivid environment possible. If this is experienced in infant dreams, then this is exactly what has been selected for, as newborns spend a good deal of time in this virtual environment.
Of course, the virtual environment will likely be a reflection of the real environment and how infants interact with their virtual environment is going to be a function of the perceptual and cognitive capacities they have developed. So, the REM mentation of infants, which we are arguing constitutes a type of dreaming, probably consists of recreations with important sensory information that is taken in while awake. It is this information, and these interactions with the physical and social world, which is likely vital in shaping the future mental development of the child.
The brain connections that are thought to be developed during REM sleep are not going to be haphazardly put into place and subsequently strengthened, rather, through dreaming, these connections may be optimized based on experience. If mental rehearsal can induce change and lead to the reorganization of the brain in relatively short periods of time (Pascual-Leone et al., 1995), surely the cumulative time spent dreaming will impact brain development as well. While this argument may seem contradictory to data indicating that dreaming is a gradual cognitive process that does not take place regularly until around ages 5-9 (Foulkes, 1999), the dream experience is bound to be tightly coupled with the development of general mental abilities including perception, language, and memory. Further, the lack of verbal dream reports should not exclude, a priori, the ability that a form of a dreaming is taking place.
Hypotheses can be generated based on the notion that infants have a type of dreaming mechanism, and this dreaming mechanism influences the development of certain cognitive abilities. Specifically, we predict that an optimal environment that has a good deal of complexity will interact with a healthy sleep schedule to cause an optimal development of intellectual capacities. Conversely, a disruption in the normal REM cycle of a developing individual could have negative consequences on the development of mental functions.
An example of a disorder where this hypothesis could be investigated is autism. Autism has been likened to a TOM deficit and is associated with disrupted sleep patterns (Richdale and Prior, 1995). Based on the theory developed in this paper, it is predicted that a portion of the deficits observed in autistics is due to their lack of REM sleep. We theorize that through an inability to dream, the autistic brain is negatively affected and through this negative effect, so are subsequent behaviors, such as interactions with the world around them.
One realizes, within the dream, that they are dreaming and that their actual body is asleep in bed. With this knowledge in mind, the dream continues and the dreamer is able to manipulate and interact within the dream world from a waking frame of consciousness.
Research has shown that people are able to reach this state in a sleep laboratory and are able to indicate their lucidity to the waking world by giving distinct eye signals that are recorded by EOG (LaBerge et al., 1986). Upon waking, a dream report is given in which the subject describes how many eye movements they made and the duration between these eye movements. These reports are shown to match up with observed physiological data (Laberge et al., 1981).
This is a capacity that we contend has to be unique to humans, and represents a level of awareness that is often not attained in the waking state (although see Hegel for talk of a similar type of waking "self-consciousness"; Hegel, 1979). While lucid dreaming occurs rarely for people in the general population, it is a skill that can be learned through various techniques (Laberge, 1980). These techniques generally have the person become more aware of their state of consciousness and question their reality throughout the day. By forcing the person to step outside the flow of their current perceptions and motivations during waking life, there is an increased chance that this will occur during dreaming and facilitate a lucid dream. This allows a kind of feedback between the dreaming and waking state to be reached where a more unsituated approach to waking life affects the level of situatedness in the dream and vice versa. Thus, a by-product of the dreaming virtualrehearsal mechanism may be the ability to obtain a higher level of awareness of one's place in regards to one's surroundings.
Since higher mental operations can occur during dreams, this is surely bound to interact and feed into waking cognitive abilities, and while it might not confer an obvious benefit to fitness, dreams are a venue that have been used in a number of cultures to attain higher states of consciousness (e.g., Tibetan dream yoga, and the practices of the Senoi) and increase one's sense of well-being (Wangyal, Rinpoche, and Dahlby, 1998). Since no neuro-imaging work has been done with lucid dreaming one can only speculate, but it is possible that people who are frequent lucid dreamers would show a different functional pattern of activation while in REM sleep, with greater activation of frontal regions. This potential difference in activation for lucid dreamers demonstrates the importance of taking into account subjective dream reports when interpreting data on the physiology of sleep in general, and REM sleep in particular.
Conclusion
When you consider the plasticity of the brain - with as little as 10-20 minutes of motor practice a day on a specific task the motor cortex reshapes itself in a matter of a few weeks (Karni et al., 1998) - the time spent in our dreams would surely shape how our brains develop, and influence our future behavioral predispositions. The experiences that we accrue from dreaming across our life span are sure to influence how we interact with the world and are bound to influence our overall fitness, not only as individuals, but as a species. However, this argument does have flaws.
One challenge to our hypothesis that deserves mentioning is the fact that we do not always remember our dreams (Freud, 1900). There is a tendency to think that what we cannot consciously recall does not influence us, but this is surely not the case. Consider the mere exposure effect, where preference decisions are biased by prior exposure to a stimulus, especially if that stimulus is unconsciously perceived (Bornstein and D'Agostino, 1992). These experiments demonstrate that the decisions we make are often based on information that we cannot consciously access.
Likewise, it is common to wake up without being able to remember any dreams at all and, later in the day, encounter some cue in the environment that triggers memories of a dream. This should serve as evidence that we cannot always trust our conscious minds to accurately inform us of the contents of the mind and that our actions may be heavily based on information to which we do not always have access.
While it has been proposed that dreaming is a by-product of the way in which the architecture of sleep was designed (Flanagan, 2000), the evidence presented here suggests that there are clear cognitive and behavioral ramifications due to the fact that while asleep our mind not only continues working, but acts in such a way that we are necessarily thrust into various virtual scenarios. The processing of dream content, which consists of variations in scenarios encountered during daily life in which we interact with the physical and social world, is bound to influence our cognitive capacities and subsequent appraisal of real-world content. As greater technological advances occur in the field of cognitive neuroscience we should be able to directly test some of the fundamental hypotheses generated in this paper.
Specifically, we should be able to gather information pertaining to the development of the dreaming mind in humans and others species, as well as information regarding the potential benefits gained by dreaming and the costs incurred in its absence. While only through the empirical validation of the theory proposed in this paper may we be able to better understand the role of dreaming as an evolutionary adaptation, the current work is a start along this road.
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Cross-Cultural, Cross Platform Dreaming:
SPIRITUALITY TODAY
Summer 1984, Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 123-134.
Philip St. Romain
Through the symbols produced in our dreams by the unconscious dimension of our persons, the Spirit of God can reveal ways of living that impede or foster Christian discipleship.
WE awaken to a new day. We lie in bed, making the transition to consciousness, beginning to consider the tasks that lie before us. But we have a peculiar sort of feeling and, giving it attention, we discover it to be connected with a dream we had just before waking. We think about the dream now, finding ourselves caught up in an intriguing story with characters that are both familiar and somewhat mythical. Does this story have a meaning? If so, what is the meaning?
During the past century, physiologists and psychologists have done considerable research into the phenomenon we call dreaming. People concerned about Christian spiritual life, moreover, have found dreams and their interpretation a means of discerning God's will and thus of more intimate communion with God. The purpose of this article is to sketch the basis for this view of dreams and their interpretation as significant for Christian discipleship. The hope is that readers will be encouraged to investigate further and acquire some skill in the art of interpreting their dreams as a means of spiritual growth.
Scientific research has revealed that dreams occur during a state of sleep called Rapid Eye Movement (REM), which is very different from other levels of non=dreaming sleep. Considerable evidence indicates that one of the primary reasons why we need to sleep is precisely that we may dream. People under experimental investigations who were deprived of REM sleep became more irritable than when they were awakened during other sleep. Our interest, however, is in the meaning of dreaming and of dreams. For this we turn to the Bible and to psychology.
The Bible and Dream Interpretation
John A. Sanford's Dreams, God's Forgotten Language and Morton T. Kelsey's God, Dreams, and Revelation present exhaustive coverage of the place of dreams in the Bible. Kelsey further examines the attitudes toward dreams held by the fathers of the church.
Concordances and commentaries, such as John L. McKenzie's Dictionary of the Bible, agree with Sanford and Kelsey that God has indeed spoken to his people through dreams at different times in the past. We recall the dream of Jacob's ladder (Gen. 28:10-15) and the Magi's dream (Matt. 2:12) as two of the better known instances of revelation through dreams. But other biblical personages -- notably Abraham, Joseph, Gideon, Samuel, Saul, Joseph (Mary's husband), Pilate's wife, and Paul -- also experienced significant dreams.
Kelsey points out that biblical accounts of dreams, "visions in the night," prophecies, talking with God face to face, and experiences with angels all express a mode of communication from God that is not subject to ego control. In many of his lectures, tapes, and writings, Kelsey emphasizes the existence of a spiritual universe that underlies our space-time world, the two coming into contact in many places, but especially perceived by us in our unconscious. Dreams, visions, prophecies, and other communications from God are all, according to Kelsey, different ways in which messages from the spiritual realm break into consciousness where they can be comprehended and acted upon. The dream, he concludes, is the most common of these phenomena.
Unfortunately, the Bible is relatively silent when it comes to the art of dream interpretation. "Are not interpretations God's business?" Joseph explained to the Pharaoh's officials (Gen. 40:8). "Unless sent by emissaries from the Most High, do not give them [dreams] a thought," wrote Jesus ben Sirach (Sir. 34:6), reiterating Joseph's position, but leaving the matter quite vague. This problem is further compounded when there appear on the scene certain false prophets with their lying visions and dreams causing such a mistrust of dream content that Elijah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah denounced the dream as a credible mode of communication from the divine (see especially Jer. 23:16-32).
Excessive fear about dream interpretation is uncalled for, however. The most harsh injunctions concerning dreams are found in Old Testament works only. We live in the Pentecostal Age, about which the prophet Joel stated: "I [Yahweh] will pour out my Spirit on all humanity; your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men see visions" (3:1). It is almost as though Joel wrote out of frustration over the difficulty in discerning God's voice and looked forward to the day when people would be more intimately aware of the Spirit of God and, consequently, of the Spirit's voice in dreams and visions.
Although the New Testament includes none of the pessimism of the Books of Ecclesiastes or of Jeremiah concerning dreams, it, too, is very silent about the "how-to" of dream interpretation. There seems to be an almost naive trust in the Spirit's workings through dreams and visions, so much so that the history of the church took several significant turns because dreams, visions, and prophetic utterances were taken seriously (see Acts 10:10-16; 11:1-8). Could it be that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit longed for by Joel affected the dream lives of the people of God?
This brief survey of the place of dreams in the Bible provides evidence that God was believed to have spoken to his people through dreams on some occasions. For an understanding of how dreams might be a vehicle for divine communication and of how they might be interpreted, we will find Jungian psychology most helpful.
Light From Psychology
The anatomist and physiologist find it useful to recognize the existence of various parts of the human body as tissues and organs, each of which performs certain tasks that others do not. Very little objection seems to be raised concerning this dissection, however subjective it may appear to be at times. In a similar way psychologists in the Jungian tradition have identified certain faculties of the human psyche which function cooperatively to help us to perceive our worlds and discover their meanings.
Jung spoke of two basic levels of psychic activity. Consciousness is that level of the psyche where awareness is possible. The coordinating center of consciousness is the ego-self, which directs voluntary activities. The unconscious is that vast, mysterious level of the psyche where involuntary activities are coordinated. Repressed memories and feelings barred from consciousness by defense mechanisms as well as healthy memories and impressions belong to what Jung called the personal unconscious. The collective unconscious is a deeper level -- the primitive, instinctual psyche over which consciousness was developed.
The language of the unconscious is not like that which we are accustomed to speaking during the course of everyday communication. Dreams, which are spontaneous productions of the unconscious, strikingly demonstrate to us that this "dark speech of the spirit' may be as incomprehensible to the ego at times as is a foreign language. This incomprehensibility is due to the fact that the language of dreams is symbolic, and we have increasingly lost the ability to value and to understand symbolic language in modern scientific and technological culture.
The symbol is the primary means by which the energies of the unconscious are presented to consciousness. Behind symbols lie specific kinds of energies and instincts that have taken from the great storehouse of forms in the unconscious certain representations to present their case to consciousness. If it were not for these symbols, we could not comprehend the nature of the energies of the unconscious as clearly as we do. For example, the desire for food is experienced as a certain kind of sensation in the stomach, but also by the emergence into consciousness of images about these foods which, presumably, the body is trying to tell us we need to eat. The energies that are tied up in symbols pertain to our ever-changing needs and are expressed symbolically in as many subtle shades of specificity as there are specific shades of human needs.
To Jung, it was obvious that the symbols produced by the unconscious related to the context of the life of an individual. Dream symbols cannot, therefore, be standardized, as the supermarket pocket manuals attempt to do. One's personal associations with the symbols produced by dreams are of primary importance.
But there are basic human needs shared by all people; and there are, correspondingly, movements of psychic energy that are similar in all people. If not, we could not communicate with one another. These similarities in basic human needs and psychic movements make it possible for us to recognize broad categories of dream symbols. They are described as follows:
(1) sensation: attentiveness to the outside world of reality;
(2) intuition: attentiveness to the inner world of possibilities inherent in a particular perception;
(3) thinking: interest in the "whatness" of things; and
(4) feeling: the emotional impression that tells us what things are worth or how they are valued.
Sensing and intuiting, thinking and feeling, represent, in Jungian psychology, paired opposites, or extreme poles, of two basic activities of the psyche: perceiving and understanding respectively. They are called the Four Functions in his terminology, and in personality studies it has been demonstrated that we all favor one function over its opposite. One might, for example, prefer sensing and feeling over intuiting and thinking. This does not mean, however, that the opposite functions are not utilized and integrated into the personality. We all sense, intuit, think, and feel; and these psychic capacities are often symbolized in dreams as personifications of people we know who exemplify one or more of these functions. Our association with the people in our dreams and attention to their activities can help us to learn how to integrate better perception and understanding in our own personalities.
Another broad category into which dream symbols may fall is persona, the face we show to the world. In Jung's understanding, this superficial level of awareness becomes destructive when we excessively identify ourselves with the roles demanded of us by society's customs, manners, or standards of success. Our persona-selves show up in dreams as clothing (or lack thereof), masks, or colored skin.
Still another category is shadow, the side of ourselves we hide from the world. Much of our shadow energies come from repressed anger, maliciousness, and other destructive tendencies. These energies invariably appear in dreams as ugly and terrifying symbols, usually in personifications of the same sex as the dreamer. Because our shadow-selves include so much energy, learning how to transform our shadows is one key to vitality, and dreams can help us to unlock this process. Because the shadow also includes our repressed greatness and fear of success, its recognition and acceptance can lead to tremendous growth.
Libido, or psychic energy, is still another broad category of dream symbols. We have spoken of psychic energy already, so it is appropriate here to recognize that even this is often symbolized in dreams by horses or other animals and by transportive machines that connote motion and power.
Symbols of Sexual Complement
A very significant set of broad categories is anima and animus, the hidden femininity in a man and the hidden masculinity in a woman respectively. These energies follow from the fact that we inherit two sets of chromosomes, one from each parent. In a man, the anima, or feminine side of his personality, represents the caring, nurturing, and emotional aspect of his nature; in a woman, the animus represents those aspects of her personality dealing with opinions, convictions, and self-assertiveness. Learning to integrate these sexual complements is one of the main tasks of the individual and is essential for growth.
Men and women do well to pay careful attention to the characters in their dreams who are of the opposite sex from themselves. These characters are often represented by people we know but are sometimes symbolized by creatures of a mythological type. Aphrodite, Eros, Athena, Mercury, and all their relatives still influence our lives, often breaking into our dreams when the instinctual energies they represent cry out for attention. Relationship with the anima or animus influences, and is influenced by, our relationships with people of the opposite sex, usually moving from seductive eroticism in early life through amiable companionship in the middle years to culminate in spiritual wisdom. Anima and animus stand at the gates of the collective unconscious and are the most valuable interlocutors between the ego and the deeper self.
The category known as archetypes contains symbols from the collective unconscious that communicate the instincts. They often assume mythological forms and motifs that prevent personal associations from being clues to their meaning. Serpents, dragons, centaurs, devils, and other characters seemingly straight from a book of fairy tales frequently convey these energies. The contention of Jungians is that the myths of all races represent archetypal dreams shared and discussed among people having the same types of dream experiences. This explains the similarities between cultural myths and indicates why some knowledge of mythology is helpful for understanding dreams.
The final category to be noted here is complexes, semi-spontaneous centers of psychic activity caused by repression or lack of mental discipline.
Compulsions related to eating, drinking, smoking, talking -- anything that is not under the control of the ego-self -- can become a complex. Repressed feelings and memories that form little substations of psychic activity can break into consciousness, producing moods and seemingly engulfing the ego momentarily. Symbols representing complexes usually appear in dreams as forms that personal association can readily identify. The cigarette may represent a smoker's complex, or the compulsion to diet may be symbolized by fat or skinny people. Pathological complexes which operate like alter egos will likewise show up in dreams, although they may require professional assistance to be integrated into the whole personality.
While the above represent the most basic categories of symbols that are likely to appear in dreams, it should be noted that there are many other aspects of life -- for example, occupation, sense of humour, physical health -- that can be and often are symbolized in dreams. It should be further noted that dream symbols seldom appear representing only one of the above categories. Complexes may, for instance, include shadow and even persona symbols; archetypes often include many subtleties; the shadow might even represent repressed thinking or feeling functions; the anima and animus reveal hundreds of shades of unintegrated sexuality, sometimes combining symbols relating to any of the Four Functions or even the shadow and persona. A common occurrence in dreams is the metamorphosis, or changing, of a symbolic character as the dream develops.
The unconscious may produce symbols from events of the past day, from present relationships, from television and movie characters -- from all that multitude of perceptions which slip into the personal unconscious or are produced as archetypes by the collective unconscious. Obviously these symbols speak to us about our lives. Seldom can they be interpreted objectively, that is, as pertaining to the person or persons dreamed about. Objective interpretations are usually limited to married couples or to those who enjoy such a degree of intimacy that they share a relationship with one another at the unconscious level of existence.
The symbols of our dreams, we conclude, tell us much about the psychic forces at work within us, of which we are not consciously aware. In telling us about the working of these forces, our dreams are also telling us how we are relating to other persons, to society, to nature. In other words, our lives are embedded in a world of which we have conscious knowledge and feelings and to which we consciously respond and react, but of which we also have unconscious knowledge, feeling, responses, and reactions. These latter enter into consciousness through symbols, as in ancient myths, or in fairy tales, or, as we are considering now, in our dreams.
In the spiritual life we are called and empowered by the Holy Spirit to relate the whole of our lives -- their conscious as well as their unconscious aspects -- to God. Of course, we seek to discern God's will for us in the external circumstances of our lives, for example, a sick child to be cared for, massive world hunger to be relieved, ignorance of God's saving work in Christ to be replaced with knowledge of the gospel. We also seek to discern God's will in our conscious behavior; for instance, we have the ability to put people at ease or to lead children to learn -- a sign that suggests how God is calling us to serve people. But we can seek to discern God's will for us also through the dreams we have.
Through their symbols we discover, for example, faulty relationships to ourselves (perhaps failure to integrate masculine or feminine traits into our sexual identity); we see deficient relationships to others (as relating to them only through our persona, or social mask, and not our real self). Our lack of Christian love and the proliferation of sin which follows and makes life miserable (complexes) can be discerned through dreams. Positively, our dreams may reveal to us psychologically healthy tendencies which deserve to be fostered consciously, so that we may love ourselves, neighbors, and God more adequately as Christians. A case can be made, therefore, for attending to our dreams as a means of growing in Christian discipleship.
Special Problems
There are, however, some problems to be dealt with in using dreams as a means of spiritual direction. Many people claim that they do not remember their dreams. Because it is a fact that we all dream several times during each sleeping period, the problem has to do more with our remembering than with our dreaming. I have found that a person's capacity to recall dreams increases as one begins to take dreams seriously. Those first few dreams recorded are especially important, almost as though the unconscious is saying: "Well now, you're finally going to listen, eh? Well, here's the way things are now!" I have found, too, that prayer for meaningful dreams before sleep helps me to recall dreams in the morning, sometimes even supplying that extra impetus necessary to move me to record them.
Those who suffer from insomnia and fear the consequences of midnight activity have a surmountable problem. I have discovered that for myself (a slight insomniac) difficulty in returning to sleep ensues only when I have attempted to interpret a dream after recording it. Interpretation involves the conscious, rational mind, which is the restless "daemon" we put to rest during sleep. A mere recording of a dream seldom bothers me more than does, say, getting a glass of water during the night, if I can leave the interpretation until later. If the insomniac can write down or tape-record the dream and leave it at that, returning to sleep should not be a problem. If the problem remains, then it will be necessary to restrict dream data to those recalled when waking up for the day.
I insert here a word of caution about examining the messages of dreams. Dreams represent a natural expression of the unconscious and attempt to harmonize and integrate instincts, memories, and feelings. If one has a history of neuroses and depressions, it is better to take up the study of dreams in communication with a counsellor who has developed some skills in the art of dream interpretation (such counsellors are few, but they exist). Dreams can be brutally frank, threatening whatever fragile self-image the neurotic holds fast to. If at all possible, depressives and neurotics should seek professional support when studying dreams.
On the other hand, dreams can sometimes compensate for a poor self-image by flattering and highly elevating the dreamer in his or her dreams. Then there are those who, regardless of dream content, suppose that a little understanding about dreams bequeaths upon them a supernatural knowledge that "mere laypeople" lack.
While it is true that dreams would, in the above examples, eventually compensate for puffed up egos, calling them back to proper proportions, the obnoxiousness of the dreamer in the intermittent periods might overstrain relationships that had taken years, of shared activities to build. It follows, then, that "healthy" people (a minority, to be sure) would also do well to pursue dream interpretation by dialoguing about dreams with spouses, friends, counsellors -- anyone who can help to confirm the kinds of insights about self that one believes the dreams are yielding. At any rate, we should not assume that dreams open the door to a radically different value system than that by which we now live. Dreams are unconscious productions, and therefore are pre-rational and pre-moral. Their feedback might have moral ramifications, but the working out of a response to dream data is the task of consciousness, which is always the responsible center of the psyche.
Why Dreams?
But why go through all the trouble of recording and interpreting dreams? True, God has spoken through dreams. But he has spoken through other means, too. Are there not easier, more trustworthy ways to hear his voice? Those are good questions, indeed, most likely to come up at 2:30 A.M. when one wakes up with a dream fresh in mind but does not feel like making the effort to record it. It is true that there are many other ways to discern the voice of God in our lives, but why exclude the dream if it is one way? If there is the most remote possibility that we might learn something new about ourselves -- something that only dreams can reveal -- does it not make sense to try to listen? Are we not passionately interested in our own lives and their development? If we are, then considering the parables about our lives which dreams spin nightly should present exciting possibilities for us. If we do not care about our lives, then maybe dreams can reveal why the light of passion has become "hidden under a bushel basket." Looking at the problem from another direction, does it make sense to withhold openness to a possible communication from God? Such pearls are of immeasurable worth to Christians and should be sought out at least as persistently as the friend in the gospel story sought bread in the night (Luke 11:5-8).
The least possible value to be realized from reflecting upon dream material will be a more nearly full communication with our unconscious and a growing comprehension of the world of the symbolic -- two very significant values. Whether or not we understand all the stories and characters that come to us in dreams, there is something healthy about being in more complete dialogue with the unconscious. Until we experience the depth of awareness that comes from listening to, and struggling to comprehend, dream data, we will not know what we are missing. It is free; it is fulfilling; and it is fun!
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Famous Dreams:
More than two decades after Elvis Presley's death, Tom Jones, who had first met Elvis in his Vegas days, began to have recurring dreams, set in the 1950s, in which he tried to warn his friend about his sorrowful demise.
"I tell him how the drugs will ruin his life," Jones explained. "I tell him about his early death. [I say] 'I'm from the future, look at my clothes!' Then I look down at myself and realise I don't look any different because many of the things I wear today are a revival of '50s fashion!"
[Alas, Jones' dream always ended with Elvis refusing to believe. "I talk like crazy, but I never manage to prevent his ruin... During the last years of his life, it was virtually impossible to help him. He didn't answer the phone, he didn't call back, he isolated himself."]
Jones, Tom [born Thomas Jones Woodward] (1940- ) Welsh musician and entertainer [noted for his ABC variety show, "This Is Tom Jones" (1969); for such hit songs as "It's Not Unusual," "What's New Pussycat," "Thunderball," "Little Lonely One," "Never Fall In Love Again," and "Help Yourself"; and for such recordings as The Lead and How to Swing It (1994), I'm Coming Home (1995), Tom Jones: Live (1997), and Tom Jones & Friends Live (1997)]
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Reader’s Dream & Analysis:
None this issue.
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Symbol of the Month:
I, and many other researchers, have found at least 3 different types of symbols being used within the operational language of dreams. Each of the types is used in the same way but seem to spring from different sources of knowledge within us. They are all stored in the subconscious memory banks and sorted according to their associative value. The subconscious seems to use graphic images for its “words” and it tends to group all “like” images together. And, just as a picture can tell a story which would take many words to describe, a dreaming image also does this.
Universal symbols are the ones which have been called archetypal or primal. They seem to have their source in some type of collective unconscious of the human species like that postulated by Jung. Cultural symbols derive, as the name implies, from the cultural bias and belief system of the individual within the culture. And finally, personal symbols are those which may only have meaning to the particular dreamer and are based on that individual's personal life experience. Universal Symbols By far, one of the most interesting aspects of dream symbols is the apparent commonality of certain types of symbols which are archetypal in nature and seem to be fairly consistent in meaning across all cultural lines and time epochs. The existence of these primal symbols should be an obvious clue to us that there is some aspect of mind through which all humanity is connected at some level. I think the evidence for it points to the superconscious mind level.
In order to explain this a little more fully I would like to illustrate with an example of one of these types of Universal symbols...water. Water means emotion, and it has meant emotion, more often than not, for many thousands of years. The reason for this should become obvious as I show how the symbol meaning is derived within the associative functioning mechanism of the subconscious mind.
Water, first of all, in its primal meaning, relates to spirit. However, spirit, has no objective body or form to manifest through in the material world of our waking conscious reality. Without form there can be no image. But, because of its nature, the subconscious must use images to display the artifacts of its operation and experiences.
So, the subconscious mind, being located in-between the conscious mind and the superconscious mind, must look into the world of the conscious awareness and find a form which can be used to satisfactorily personify the intended meaning. There in the outer world it finds that the qualities and characteristics of water, such as its ability to manifest in 3 states (solid, liquid & gaseous), its flowing and changing nature, its permeation of our lives--both within and without our physical bodies, its cleansing qualities, and its absolute necessity for physical survival, allow it to form the basis of an association of likeness to the greater meaning of that which many of us assumes exists, and call spirit. But because we have no other contextual form with which to visualize and understand the qualities of spirit, water is used by the subconscious as the perfect symbol, or metaphor, for it.
And now, when we reflect on this a little more, we get to the second stage of the meaning of the water symbol related to our inner selves...which is what dreams reflect and display to us. Emotion is one of those words which very specifically points to a reality. But that reality is only inner reality. Emotion does not exist in a physical form out in the waking world of conscious awareness. You can't find an emotion walking around in the real world. You cannot capture one for dissection and study. It is an internally “felt” force and not a thing which can be handled or measured.
This inner force needs to be identified by the subconscious as analogous to something in the outer world in order for us to have any chance of consciously understanding the intended meaning given in a dream. And since the state of our "spirit" is directly manifested “through” the state of our "emotions", the subconscious assumes that the two are essentially identical....and thus it can use the image of water to display a form to our conscious minds when it means spirit and/or emotion. So, to the subconscious mind, which is the "speaker", or "translator" between the superconscious level of mind and the conscious level of mind, in the mental movies of our dreams, water is the physical (outer) form of the symbol, emotion is the mental (inner) form of the symbol, and spirit is the primal...non-manifested...essence of the meaning.
This symbol making process seems to show that reality actually proceeds from the abstract to the definite through a 3 stage process. It seems that reality proceeds from the unmanifested essence, first, to the mentally manifested form and second, to the materially manifested form. And further, each of the levels of reality have a direct 1-to-1 relationship with each other in that they each experience the same essence of primal reality in a form which is appropriate to their experiential environment.
If this is true, then there will be a type of emotion which corresponds to every physical form as well as every archetypal or primal, spiritual form. The images from our outer, waking world which correspond to ”like” emotional and spiritual forms then become the graphic symbols used as a basis for the language of dreams. And when these symbol images from the physical world are so perfectly illustrative of both a spiritual concept and a mental concept, they become what I call Universal symbols. This indicates that they cannot usually be "improved" upon since the subconscious can rarely find a better metaphor.
These Universal symbols form the basis or main structure of the “grammar” or “vocabulary” of dreams of everyone. I think it is imperative that anyone interested in truly understanding their dreams, as well as their lives, become familiar with these basic forms. It will be found that they are repeatedly used in dreams throughout one's life. Cultural SymbolsCultural symbols are almost as permanent as Universal ones because they often take on their meanings by association with the Universal ones. By Cultural symbols I mean things like the characters and scenes from myths and religions, but also things which that culture uses as tools like automobiles, jet planes, sewing machines, etc.
A good example to use to explain this might be the symbol for house. In our current culture the house might be depicted as a single structure, a condo, an apartment, a church, a castle, a mobile home or a tent....among other things. But in, say, a Native American migrating culture of 200 years ago we would not expect to find them dreaming of condos or mobile homes. Most likely the house symbol for them would have been a teepee, wigwam or cave. Other groups might have dreamed of pueblos or longhouses. In all cases and cultures, however, the structure in which we "live and have our being" represents the mind. We each experience both our inner and our outer lives through our minds. When we are in our houses, in dreams, we are in our minds.
Religious icons, stories and figures also relate strongly to Cultural symbols. And the great dramatic myths (and truths) which have been handed down to us and form a large part of our internal database also seem to have important relationships as Cultural symbols.
Personal Symbols
Here is where the individual meaning of symbols comes most fully into play. And it is often the most difficult area of the inner language to interpret properly without some knowledge of the above two symbol types, combined with much self study of one’s own experiences and the resulting artifacts of that experience which are stored in the subconscious as memories. No "other” person can arrive at a satisfactory meaning for a personal symbol without first knowing what memories are being accessed to provide that symbol for the individual. The best that one person can do to help another person come to an understanding of personal symbols, I think, is to show a process by which the symbols are chosen by the subconscious mind and to show how to ask the right questions to ascertain the meanings.
For this reason, you will not find your personal symbols listed in a dream dictionary. The writers of dream dictionaries do not know who or what “Aunt Meg” means to you...except, perhaps, in a general way. Only “you”, as the dreamer, know this...even though you might not consciously be aware of it. But you DO know it because you created it...or rather, your memories did.
Personal symbols usually take the most study and individual effort in order to understand and interpret correctly. To do so each individual must become sort of a detective...looking for clues, lining up the evidence and narrowing the possibilities until the most probable interpretation becomes clear.
Here is an example from a man's Personal symbols list of people (*see People in Dreams). He had a particular aunt who figured in his dreams from time to time and it took quite a while for him to realize what she meant and what a dream relating to memories of her house and yard meant to him. He finally realized that her husband, his uncle, whom he had rarely seen while growing up, since he worked at night, was the owner of a bakery. So his aunt always had a large, metal dish of bakery fresh goodies on her dining room table and, as a child, he was often treated to them. Eventually, after reading through many of the dream scenarios concerning this aunt he was able to conclude that, in every context, she meant “gestation period...” “something in the oven...” or something “good” or “worthwhile” which was going to take time. The dream was not “about” his aunt. It was “about” him...his life...his endeavors. And this is the subject of most of the dreams of an individual.
As a postscript to this story he later received even further confirmation of the symbol meaning from an older cousin of his. he had asked her what this aunt might mean to her. She said "slow....she always moved and talked so slowly”. So they both arrived at the same symbol through two different methods but each is supportive of the other.
But there’s more. Symbols can, and often do, have multiple layers or levels of meaning. This is covered more fully in the “Gender” section but I will note here that the second level of meaning for this aunt of mine ties the symbol to a subconscious faculty or attribute because she is female. This means that whatever she represents in the dream is “inner”....related to feelings and emotions...rather than actual outer experiences. This is a large subject but a very important one in the understanding of just how much information is discernible through one’s dreams.
Other Personal symbols might be related to past events such as a childhood experience, a place, a favorite or “un”-favorite thing....literally anything from the memory banks which had, or has, enough emotional impact within the subconscious mind to be associated with an image capable of being displayed to you through the mental movies of the dreaming self.
If you take the time and make the effort to decode your personal symbols you will not be disappointed. It is not always an easy task but it can be a very enlightening one on the path to understanding your dreams.
Universal Symbols
Aspects of the Self as Dream Symbols
MIND
Father = The old conscious mind, physical body and outer life circumstance. The one which preceded or "begat" the one you have today. Your waking life experiences one generation back from the present. Yesterday's memories of events.
Mother = The older subconscious mind, emotional body and inner life circumstance. The one which preceded or "begat" the one you have today. Your conclusions, imaginations and emotional memories of yesterday that make you who you are today. This is related to "within" the mind/self where the mind identifies its "existence" as being focused when we are in introspective mode, whereas the "father" is related to the physical environment that the mind exists within, and IDENTIFIES itself with, when it is conscious and what we call awake.
A Man and Wife (or couple) = These in many cases are substitutes for Father and Mother. Many times a dream setting or "stage", as I call them, will require someone other than Father and Mother...someone you knew who had "specific" characteristics that the dream in indicating. In this case the subconscious simply calls in different "actors" who might fit the setting better. Gender attributes apply respectively to which part of your mind/self/life is being shown. Past, present and future.If the couple is older they represent old experiences/memories. If they are contemporary with you, they represent your own "actual" or your possible "optional" experiences. If they are younger they represent your present and immediate future condition... the one that is developing now.
A Brother and Sister = Indicates a current state of your being as opposed to the father/mother, which was what came before now. Gender attributes apply respectively to which part of your mind/self/life is being shown. Brother and sister represent your current generation, so they would indicate the present.
A Man = The active principal or force...The conscious mind...especially if he seems associated with the left in some way or seems logical or analytical about the situation or is very macho. Also can represent the physical body or the present physical life circumstances.
A Woman = The subconscious mind especially if she seems associated with the right in some way or seems very emotional (cold or hot) or creative in the situation or is very feminine. Also can represent the emotional body or the present mental life circumstances. A new woman, for instance, can represent a new mental/emotional condition of your awareness.
The "Old or Ancient One" = Could be a grandparent but most likely an unknown old man or woman representing the wisdom of the superconscious level. This is a representation of your own ideals...your own authority and your own judge. Ideals seem to formed at a very young age. Perhaps we are born with them. But the mindset that we had when we were "as little children" is represented by a diametrically opposed dream symbol....an aged, wise person. This is what we are all seeking to be conscious of again.
Child, Children, Baby = thoughts, ideas or situations which are the expression of the creativity of your mind.
Young Girl = a present and/or immediate future "state" of subconscious, inner, emotial circumstances which have already been programmed and which you are going into.
Young Boy = a present and/or immediate future "state" of conscious, outer life, circumstances which you are going into.
SPIRIT
(Superconscious Mind)
The Christ = The perfection of knowledge about the Self and the spiritual truths imprinted in the Superconscious level of being and waiting to be awakened by the will. Activation of this into the awareness system opens a development toward eventual access to complete dominion of the conscious mind (will) over materiality.
Water = Spirit, energy of the superconscious mind which flows through the subconscious mind on its way to our conscious awareness of it. IT IS OBJECTIFIED IN YOUR LIFE AS EMOTION. Could be good or bad. Water leaking, rain (like raining on your parade, getting soaked), storms and floods is bad or negative spirit. It indicates a problem. Water or other liquids being consumed is partaking of spiritual advice from the superconscious (drinking a glass of water, or even a coke or some refreshment) or is indicative of the desire for raising the awareness of the emotional feelings. In other words when water is behaving normally, it indicates good spirits and when it is abnormal, it means problems with the spirit...as shown to our conscious awareness through and by the subconscious emotions.
Washing, Bathing, Showering = Cleansing Self (subconscious memories) with ideals of the spirit or superconscious, which eventually has the effect of also cleansing the outer body. Cleansing....releasing....our emotions. Allowing them to flow so that they may cleanse us externally in the waking life experience. This could apply to bodily health that emotions can affect.
Ocean = The Great Spirit, the Infinite, God, the First Cause, the Creator, The Primal Force, you get the idea. The fountain source and ultimate destination of all water (spirit). As spirit becomes manifested in life...it objectifies inside us as emotion. Therefore water equals emotion or feeling.
Fountain or Spring = Spirit flowing out into life.
River = Your individual life emotions and the memories of them, running back to its source. It is the journey of the soul through eternity on its way back to its creator. The river behind is the past. Ahead is the future.
Log Jam on River = A stage in life where many downed trees (karma [memory] from both your present life and/or your past lives) will hold up your journey. They are blocking emotions. And negative, blocking emotions MUST be cleansed from the subconscious minds in order for positive spirit energy to flow, and physical/mental/spiritual health ensue.
Diamonds, Crystals & Precious Stones = Illumination of superconscious truths, spiritual "jewels" of everlasting truth, wisdom. These all "transmit" light. They don't block it as an opaque object would. Light is awareness. Thus they allow higher awareness to flow through to our lower perceptions.
Metal = based on spiritual or superconscious information or truths that are exemplified in material life. For instance, "testing one's metal" is essentially testing one's spiritual, emotional and physical aptitude.
Dam = a blockage of disbelief or misunderstanding of spiritual Self's ideals or principles on the emotional river of life.
White Water or Rapids = Thrilling ride. Scary but emotionally enjoyable learning spiritual secrets of the superconscious pattern.
Locks in a Waterway = a temporary spiritual condition of feeling entrapped or stagnated necessary to change to a new emotional level in your journey on the "river of your life."
Muddy Water = Unclear spiritual principles...thus unclear emotions. Information from the superconscious which does not compute with how the conscious mind has judged the experience of its outer life. The subconscious is seeking to clear up the misunderstanding.
Navy and Naval Personnel or Uniforms = spiritual guides or principles from the superconscious being exhibited in the subconscious. The Navy, like the whale, are masters of the sea of emotions. They could be likened to the security forces attempting to keep peace within the subconscious.
Clear Water = The opposite of muddy. Clear transmits light, which is awareness.
Wind = Changes. The winds of change.
Universal Symbols
Animals as Dream Symbols
***On all of these be sure to check for colloquialisms such as "cunning as a fox" or "fat as a pig."
Bull = Could relate to a "bunch of bull" or relate to the cattle symbol depending on how it is used.
Bear = Burden, unpredictable raw power, grouchiness, rugged, tough.
Bee = Honey Bee--the worker ("Busy as a bee"). Bumblebee, Wasp, etc. could represent pests or irritating circumstances.
Dog = In my case, with no children of my own, it definitely represents my responsibilities or sense of responsibility. I have to provide for the dog. In my job they represent clients. How it responds to me in the dream relates to how I am handling the responsibility. Don't know about people with children. This would probably supersede the pet as a responsibility. Dog also represents man's best friend but can turn on him.
Cat = Am still working on this one. Most probably relates to independence because of their independent nature. Might relate to sex in some way also. Of course, if you're a cat owner and don't have children it could represent your responsibilities in the same way as the dog above.
Cattle = People as a society, the "herd" mentality.
Chicken = chicken, afraid.
Cow = see "Cattle"
Deer = gentle, timidity, swiftness.
Dove = Peace, love (cooing love birds).
Eagle = Spiritual heights, master of the air, freedom. Mastery of 3 dimensional space.
Feathers = Symbols of attainment or mastery of superconscious truths.
Fish = Spiritual denizens (ourselves) in their primitive state i.e. before evolutionary spiritual development in the earth.
Fox = cunning, clever, master of the analytical mind.
Geese and Ducks = Migratory birds which imprint on, flock and follow the leader or peer group. Same as Cattle.
Goat = surefootedness.
Gorilla = primitive development, immature intelligence.
Insects = little annoyances in life, pests.
Lamb = the innocent sacrifice.
Lion = karma. The power of the past to affect you. Past lives or past life. It is the king of the beasts on the earth, as is karma, which is nothing more than your programming or memory.
Lizard = unfounded fear, not poisonous, but primitive emotion none the less.
Locusts = shedding of skin of old self in order to grow. Could also be snake shedding skin.
Monkey = Like a gorilla but more frivolous and not as dangerous.
Owl = wise, especially related to dreams or the unknown since they are night creatures.
Pig = gluttony. Has also represented a person's view of society, as gluttons for money or sensation.
Polar Bear = Burden caused by isolation (north). Financial debt.
Puppies = New responsibilities.
Rabbit = fertility, extremely fast multiplication.
Raven or Blackbird = Symbol of the hidden secrets of the superconscious coming to you in dreams. It is the "soul" or "dead" in many cultures. Elijah, the prophet, was fed "bread and meat" by ravens in the wilderness. Beatles' song "Blackbird singing in the dead of night". Moody Blues include it in their work also.
Sheep = see "Lamb" but they are also flocking animals which could indicate groups or masses of humanity. Cultural or peer groups. Associations.
Snake = Can represent fears. Can also relate to awakening of kundalini since it can cause great fear and it has been portrayed by every culture as the snake. Also called the devil associated with the knowledge of good and evil which is what kundalini creates when it rises...it displays the spiritual pattern of perfection to an imperfect mind (good and evil). A "2 dimensional creature" ... which moves like sine waves resembling our models of the duality principle of electrical flow...as in the medical symbol, the caduceus. As a reptile, it is the first creature to emerge from the "sea" of emotion-based existence to the "land" of physicality. Here it is associated with the first chakra...where lies the coiled creative power of life.
Shark (also Crocodile & Alligator) = great big primitive fear with teeth.
Spider = Busy as a spider, entrapment.
Spider Web = feeling trapped or laying out a net. Could also be "web of deceit" or intrigue.
Swan = The most graceful and beautiful of birds. The epitome of. Swan song.
Tiger = a powerful creature. The stripes indicate mistrust or opposites. It could turn on you. Can also indicate a powerfully tortured soul because of the stripes.
Black for the bad times, gold for the good. Relates to the third chakra.
Whale = the spiritual Self. The superconscious mind. Master of the ocean (universal spirit). The master of emotions. The whale is an evolved denizen of the deep...not a fish but a mammal. So I think it represents an evolved emotional body. Or the "intelligence" level of the emotional body.
Universal Symbols
Vehicles as Dream Symbols
Aircraft you are flying = Relates to confidence or lack of it depending on situation.
Airliner = similar to Bus...a common carrier. The passenger is "taken" by the circumstances toward a destination without doing the "driving" themselves. Unless one is flying their own airliner, it probably represents a sort of destiny of their current path toward some goals. NOT hands on, in other words. But since it is traveling through air, it might represent a spiritual direction or goal or purpose.
Bicycle = Balance or unbalance. Takes personal effort and learned skill to make it work.
Brakes = Necessary if needed to change direction in life... related to some aspect of security.
Bridge = Crossing to a new level of understanding and a new place in life.
Bumps or Hills in the Road = obstacles which you must ascend or become more to get through.
Bus = common carrier. Going with the flow. Someone else doing the driving.
Car = Relating to your feeling of security or lack of it in life. The type, color, condition, speed, power, direction of movement, and whose driving are all significant factors. These same factors apply to the truck. "In the drivers seat", taking control of the situation.
Convertible = different things at different times, versatile. Relating to security.
Dips or Holes in the Road = obstacles on your path which you must descend or become less to get through.
Electrical System = Your life energy being used to maintain feeling of security and comfort.
Gasoline = Can be fuel or hope to continue life's journey. But usually means volatile emotions (liquid).
Helicopter = Relates to very versatile and rapidly changing circumstances....often confidence levels. Rapid ups and downs. Related to rescue of the situation.
Keys = the keys to your creating a feeling of security or harmony in your life.
Mechanic = Repair of personal security.
Motorcycle = sense of power and freedom relating to security and being in control. Also relates balance or lack of it.
Mirror (Rear View Mirror) = Seeing life in retrospect. Look back in memory to see your path taken. Viewing the "tracks" of your past to see how you got here. Reflecting on the past.
Road = Your path in life. See "Directions."
Ship or Boat = Your transportation through life relating to spiritual, emotional and/or financial matters. They are interconnected since you can't be in high spirits when you lack the necessities of life. But anything which creates an emotional platform, such as the condition of the physical health, could be implied. The boat is either on a river (your individual spiritual/emotional path) or in a sea (the universal spirit) with no direction of flow.
Sports Car = sense of adventure and/or freedom relating to security.
Station wagon = Domestic security.
Steering Wheel = Your ability to steer your life. Control over security. How you deal with your fears to keep your faith or confidence on track.
Traffic = Frustration and delay.
Train or Railroad Track = Circumstances in life over which you have no control. It must run on tracks in an established format. It is the relationship of yourself to the rest of humanity. An unconventional person will constantly be crossing the track at right angles.
Tricycle = the bicycle but with the added stability (3rd wheel) of the superconscious levels of the Self.
Truck = Relating to employment or job. Work vehicle.
Windshield = Condition of it shows how you view your present & future related to the car symbol. How you project or envision where you are headed.
Personal Symbols
Specific People as Dream Symbols
This subject will not be displayed in a word equals situation, like the other symbol pages, because the only personal symbols I know of are my own and they would not be instructive to another reader.
Instead I will attempt to describe how one arrives at what a specific person means as a symbol in their dreams.First understand that the subconscious mind always tells us not what something is, but what it is like. In other words, the subconscious has an association or correlation within its database of memory that ties the outer "thing" to the inner "thought." To it, they are equivilant issues...thing and thought. For instance, if Uncle Bob was a lumberjack, and your principle memory...or one that is different enough from other uncles to differentiate him specifically from them...then you know that Uncle Bob used to "cut down trees." Cutting down trees, to the subconscious mind means involving oneself with karma...with the results of growths in previous experiences.
So one possibility is that Uncle Bob, because his gender is male, already represents your waking, physical life...on one symbolic level, but also represents taking care of karmic issues in that physical life. This should be considered. But there might be other things that Uncle Bob meant to your subconscious mind that you've almost forgotten consciously.For instance, Uncle Bob might have always given you money...or ice cream.....when you visited him. In this sense he would be your "benefactor" to the subconscious mind. Or maybe you helped him as an apprentice when you were on vacation during the summer, so he could have been your "employer."
In each instance, the gender aspect of Uncle Bob relating to your "outer" reality would not change, so that part of symbolic representation is pretty much set, I think. It only remains to narrow down the specific thing in your own life now that the dream is indicating to you by showing you yourself in the form of "Uncle Bob." This is the method whereby we can study and test our symbols. Whatever we come up with must have a reason to exist within the dream scenario. There must be an essential "correctness" felt or sensed. I call this the Eureka factor. When we get it, we usually know it by our feelings.
There is a kind of tingle of "okayness" that seems to occur. Why? Because the subconscious mind....creator of dreams....is also the creator of emotion and it is perfectly capable of sending us "signals" of emotion that no one else can feel, if and when we get something right. Plus the symbol interpretation must stand up to logical scrutiny within the context of the rest of the dream symbols. When both the conscious mind and the subconscious mind agree on anything ("where two or more are gathered together"...) without conflict there is created a type of harmony within the Self which cannot be fully cognized or described but can certainly felt by the individual.
There is so much more to symbols, but I especially wanted to point out that symbols can be used to determine a time. People in dreams can tell you whether the dream message is one about the past, present or future. This helps immensely in interpreting your dream and deciding whether the dream is precognitive or not.
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From The Editor:
Okay ladies and gentlemen, I am asking for some feedback. You don’t have to submit a dream, I’d even appreciate a comment, good or bad, in general, a suggestion for a topic or opinions on past articles. Anything.
I’d like to know what readers think of the newsletter, of the articles, the format, etc. If I can improve this newsletter for readers, I’d like to hear about it. After all, I am writing and publishing this for you, the reader.
Also, I just wanted to let you know that back issues of TNT are now available. You can download them at: http://www.thedreamladyonline.com/news.htm
Talk to you next month,
Dream Well,
Terry
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