Should we allow our dreams to effect us?

Effect is a noun, affect is a verb!

Anywho, I don’t read too much into mine. If you let cryptic, subconscious messages make you second-guess yourself, you could find yourself in a lot of confusing situations.

Allow me to get this out of the way.

Now, discuss away!

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Jinx, @lefteh! You owe me a Coke!

Beat ya to it, rob!

terribly sorry guys about the affect / effect. changing now…

OH FUCK I CAN’T :@... (another small fault with fluther)

Dreams are a weird mix of memory, thoughts, feelings and associations. Some are familiar and even obvious, whilst others are surprising and catch you off guard.

Whatever they are, they are representative of thoughts you have, whether you were aware of it or not.

I hope not!!!

Well, the way I see it, our dreams are the product of our own minds and can provide insight into a situation we may not have considered. It’s different when you hear a helpful angle from someone you trust – like yourself.

Then again, sometimes dreams are the mind’s way of flushing the toilet after a long, weird day – everything gets jumbled together and makes no sense.

I almost always forget my dreams. The ones I remember, though, have a profound affect on me.

Some dreams are internal, sub-conscious, and serious things. Some can just be forgotten about because they are random and senseless.

My girlfriend recently had a dream that she cheated on me and she “had to tell me” and felt sorry about having the dream. I personally didn’t care: I know she wouldn’t do that to me in real life.

So I guess it depends on the severity/ramifications that could be associated with the dream.

[contd.]
Personally I think you should pay attention to your dreams. They can make you discover something about your thoughts or feelings you weren’t fully aware of (although it was obviously in the back of your mind so to speak).
At the same time, remember dreams are symbolic and representative, not accurate (like pupntaco said – all jumbled together)

I don’t believe in letting my dreams affect me more than the “oh that was a creepy/strange dream wasn’t it? anyhow, on with the day!”. sure they might be a way for my subconscious to reach out to me and what not, but i would rather focus on my real life dreams instead of worrying about the subconscious ones. IMO, if her loved ones are going to leave her, she will have to deal with it, there’s no way for her to prevent it from happening so might as well not waste time stressing over it.

I take mine into consideration. Just the other night I had a dream that my RV was littered with matches and they kept on igniting randomly. I would put one out and it would light back up. I was constantly running around putting out small fires in the RV.

That freaked me out a bit so I cleaned up the place (I had tons of crap all over the floor) and did some work on the electrical system. I had some power strips plugged into other power strips and those where under some dirty laundry. And I ran a new line into the breaker so I am not taxing the original one as much.

It was probably good that I listened to my dream. And I have worried about burning the place down before.

And I do actually live in a RV.

Lots of times I don’t remember exactly what happens in my dreams, but the feelings I was having during the dream persist into the first few hours of my day. It’s mostly with bad dreams- like I wake up and I know something bad was happening in my dream; I don’t remember what it was, but I still feel uneasy and shaken and weird for a while.

On the other hand, I’ve had some very vivid dreams that really did inform my understanding of what was going on in my life at the time. They didn’t really help me resolve anything, but they helped me to see that there were some subconscious sources of anguish that I could uncover and deal with in my waking life.

I think some dreams are a way for your subconscious to express and cope with feelings that occur quite naturally but tend to get supressed in our everyday lives – guilt, shame, lust, grief…

Good point, but don’t forget fear!

Last night I was running through some 4-story house with secret passages trying to get away from the bad guys…

I’ve been dreaming a serial dream, where the story picks up where the last dream left off. It doesn’t happen every day, but when it does I can tell right away that I’m in for it again. Other dreams are different.
Every episode has a different theme, lately it takes place at the beach. Last time I got in trouble for failing to pay for skimboarding equipment.
It’s not scary or weird, it’s fun. I look forward to the next episode.
But no, it doesn’t affect me, other than making me want to sleep more.

lolololololol next week on “Knotmydream”

I think recurring dreams are different from random dreams, cage. In your girlfriend’s case, she needs to think about the dream imagery, the people who were in the dreams, the repeated images and feelings, and try to relate it to her life. It might be very helpful to write the stuff down.

Perhaps she is going through a lot of change or stress that might be triggering the fears of abandonment. Perhaps she is concerned about the possibility of you leaving her. Only she can really figure out what feels right. The messages of dreams are seldom direct.

Why the dreams about abandonment? Once she examines it and experiences the feelings and incorporates the message of the dreams into her life, they should stop.

LOL, not my girlfriend. just a female friend. she lives on the almost other side of the world, so I don’t think the physical side of our relationship would work very well.

@cage Forgive the misread. My answer still applies though.

oh yeah I know :)

@Trustinglife Hey, are you stealing my dreams? :) I’m pretty sure I’ve had that exact same dream before. Except the secret passageways did zip to help me get away. Instead, it made it easier for the bad guys to jump out at me.