Finding Meanings to Vivid Dreams

Dream interpretation is a hermeneutic effort that aims to explain by constructing meaning to the symbols incorporated in the dreams. Scientist are baffled by the dreams that the conscious mind can recall from the subconscious.

Dream interpretation is not a science neither it is scientific. I'd rather consider it as an art that struggles to fortify itself with bits of scientific knowledge. One explanation that sounds scientific is that dreams are metaphors that the subconscious mind creates and is subject to interpretation by the conscious mind. It can only be understood once it is shared as an object to be understood in the wake life context of the person.

Science knows when we dream. Thus we have the term REM or rapid eye movement. Which signals when the eyes are moving rapidly, the person in deep sleep is actually dreaming. But science did not take much effort in collecting those dreams and documenting them for analysis, except for Sigmund Freud that used it for his psychoanalysis.

Once I was baffled by vivid a dream. The one that I could recall from a night's sleep. Science says that we dream dreams but we can not recall of all them. Those that we can remember become significant because they are so vivid in our subconscious that it could be perceived once more in the conscious or waking life.

I dreamt I was on a small boat without a paddle, sail or rudder. The boat was moving to the east. I saw myself standing on the boat, my arms were spread as if I want to catch all the breeze that touched my face. The sky and water had no end, I could not determine where the blue sea and white sky meet. There was the sun, so bright, and the boat was moving towards the seemingly rising sun. The boat was white, and I was wearing white clothes. All I could see was my back as I was there facing the sun while the boat was moving by itself on the silent vast sea.

That dream came to me, 6 years ago, before I went back to the Philippines. "Dream experts" say that dreams are either re-cognitions or pre-cognitions in the subconscious. Thus they are contextualized as to the wake life of the person. Those precognitions can not be determined as such until it has happened as it was interpreted to be. Those re-cognitions are metaphorical representations of what happened in the waking hours.

Dreams, to me, are the efforts of our subsconscious to alert us on the waking life we spend, in ways that are symbolic. If they are pre-cognitions, it alerts us to what our mind understand of what is happening and what is going to happen. Dreams should not impair or debilitate us. If a dream puzzles us, then what we need is to reflect on our lives and not to subject it to other's interpretations.

If there is a rationale for everything, and there we create meaning to things, dreams as a system of symbols can be explained, interpreted and understood. Before it can be understood, it must be recalled down to the details.

I have a personal belief that dreams have meanings and they are influenced by our waking lives and as they are part of our mental processes, they affect our waking lives as well. Both dreams that we construct consciously or subconsciously are part of our wake life. My belief in dream interpreation stems foremost from my faith and secondly from my limited understanding of what psychology and humanities understand dreams to be.

I see dreams like an abstract painting cast in the canvass of our subsconscious. It is our minds constructions that which come from a lot of things while we are conscious. They are so fast, that we could be dreaming of a lot of things in millisecond. The Bible speaks of meanings of dreams, science speaks of the relation of our dreams in our lives, and hermeneutics account for various meanings of the symbols of our dreams as life metaphors. Socio-cultural archetypes are often the symbols in our dreams.

While I was in the Middle East, there was a night that I dreamt I travelled to the Biblical times from Genesis to the Apocalypse. I didn't try to interpret what that means. I was just so happy that I got a chance to experience that holy pilgrmage in a dream.

I feel that the dream I had while I was on a boat speaks of my repressed thoughts of moving out of the job, and returning home where I will have my peace of mind. The boat was still and so the waters, suggesting that there is nothing that I have to be worried about. The presence of the blue sky and the blue sea suggest of the many potentials and opportunities that I have. The image of the sun, represents light, enlightenmnent and spiritual calm to my part. The dream also speaks of the fact that I am free to make the choice, and the joy is mine to make that choice.

That dream of my life journey was recognition of myself and precognition that I was going back home or starting a new journey in life. I could give meaning to my dreams as well as I could direct my dreams. The latter is another thing that I will blog sometime soon.