Why do we have dreams? Do you believe behind every dream there is a hidden message?

I think that dreams are a way of one’s mind working out different scenarios while you are asleep. They are almost always very symbolic, so it can be quite difficult to decipher what they really mean. For example, a familiar person in a dream may actually represent a totally different person, thereby throwing you off to the meaning of the dream. With that said, I don’t think that every dream has a “hidden message.” Some can just be a combination of things that happened throughout the day.

Dreams summarise the thoughts, feelings and experiences you’ve had, whether it be from that day from that day, that month or that year. Most dreams seem pretty self explanatory if you think about them long enough.

I just had a dream that I killed Jay Gatsby. I haven’t read, much less even thought of this book in almost 3 years. Do I believe my subconcious brain is trying to tell me something with this dream? No, not really.

Yes but 99% of them we are not attuned to enough to benefit from. I think the entire universe is conspiring always to bring us what we need and we can’t receive it because we have layers of ego and mental obstructions.

I believe that things you are worrying about will come out in the night as bizarre dreams sometimes or it’s that cold meatloaf/coleslaw sandwich. I do think dreams are sometimes your mind’s way of figuring things out, and it’s been said dreams are just a way to get rid of all the extra things you see, hear etc that you don’t need to remember.

I don’t believe dreams are mystical in any way – there is not “future telling” or spiritual significance behind them. As the others have said, dreams are manifestations of what’s going in the subconscious. They aren’t much more beyond that.

It’s not just dreams that have hidden messages. Everything has hidden messages. It is our job (if we want to) to figure out what those messages mean.

My daughter’s guinea pig had to be put to sleep tonight. She made that choice (age 13). What is the hidden meaning there? There are so many. There’s message about death; a message about mercy; a message about caring; a message about what medicine can and can not do.

Dreams seem more doubtful, because they don’t fit the logic we are used to. But the messages are still of a similar nature: we make them up. It’s what humans do: make meaning. We look at strange facts and tell a story that holds them together. But really, dreams are no different than reality in this respect. Each holds meaning. But the meaning each holds is determined by every person who becomes aware of those things.

Dreams are nothing more than the brains’ way of getting it’s exercise by triggering various synapses and other internal activities. We are tempted to make up stories to go along with the images created, and try to assign some kind of meaning to it.

During my lifetime (I’m in my early sixties) there have been just a handful of dream/deja vu incidents, decades apart. They happen like this: In the first moments upon awakening from a night’s sleep, I recall having had an unusual dream. The details are vivid, often unusual, unlikely,even bizarre, but somehow plausible. I think about the events, scenarios, for a few more moments, say to myself, “What in the world was that about?” Shake my head, frown, get out of bed and forget all about it. Time would pass; perhaps several weeks, longer, months sometimes. Of course, I have completely forgotten about the dream. Then, in the middle of a situation, some very unusual circumstances, I suddenly recall the dream, and it is exactly, to the most minute detail, identical to the dream I recalled and dismissed that past morning. I try to be as critical, rational, as I can about it, “C’mon boy, you’re fooling yourself…you didn’t really experience this in your dream…your imagination is playing tricks on you.” The very few times it has happened (counting back now, it is only four) they ALL had one thing in common: The actual events occurred during a major, significant, life-changing event in my life. But, as vivid as the dream was, there was no forewarning, no clue, no way to connect it to a future circumstance…“How could I possibly be in a situation like this?” I would say. And then, there I was in the situation. Follow me? I don’t want to ramble or take up too much space, or I’d give you a specific example of my first one, the details; but I assure you, when the actual event occurred, I would’ve given anything to not be there, even though in the final analysis, it turned out to be somehow beneficial to me, my growth, humility, the direction my life took. As I said, a significant time, not necessarily the event itself.
What think? Please don’t call 911 and send the little men in the white coats with the butterfly nets after me…been there, done that. Cheers, Dil.
What think?

I thinks, dreams are mostly the result our imagination

@Dilettante

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@Dilettante
I’ve always seen my lovers in my dreams shortly before I met them. I would see an image of a face somewhat disembodied. The dream is always with the same quality as if to tell me to pay attention and look in the mirror at what’s to come. Sometimes I’m pleased and sometimes I resist as if I don’t want to meet this one or that one but it’s always inevitable.

I don’t believe dreams mean anything at all. I think it’s just the brain going into screen saver mode, and the familiarity of the images we see or what we feel in the dreams merely adheres to the various phases of REM so that we don’t go psycho.

Or not, but no, if dreams meant anything, I’d either be rich, or in prison by now.

@Symbeline
Or maybe you don’t understand their language.

Perhaps. Although if they do have meanings, I doubt it’s as simple as people like to claim it is. I heard that there are universal AND individual meanings that have been with us since our cavemen days. The Sun is universal religion as globally understood, and a spider (Which looks like the Sun.) is one’s personal take or comprehension of spirituality.
Insects and fecal matter are emotional exhaustion. Murder is emotional repression. But even with all that, it’s easy to label meanings like a dictionary when there’s no explaining why and how.

I think there are personal and universal archetypes as in a vehicle is your body, your self but it may be a different mode of transport in another part of the world.

That’s what HP Lovecraft thought too. He made a whole map of the Dreamlands and the things you might encounter within. My dad swore he’s been in it. I may have too, but that was an effect from checking out the book I think, at least, more than anything else.

@Symbeline
The more i read about DMT the more intrigued I am:
From the Wiki:

“It is proposed that DMT and other endogenous hallucinogens mediate their neurological abilities by acting as neurotransmitters at a sub class of the trace amine receptors; a group of receptors found in the CNS where DMT and other hallucinogens have been shown to have activity. Wallach further proposes that in this way waking consciousness can be thought of as a controlled psychedelic experience.”

I’ve experienced very strange abstract type altered states barely sleeping almost awake and my gues is that DMT has been released from my pineal gland if I had to guess.

I’ve looked up the meaning of my dreams in a book my daughter bought. So many meant I would be receiving money- not so far.

@faye
I hacked into your dreams

@SeventhSense Did you route my money to yourself??!!

I put some in a dream bank for you. Just think of it as a surreal treasure hunt.

@SeventhSense As long as the surreal bank will support a surreal vacation, I’m in.

@faye
But you must get past the gatekeeper. Mwahaahaa!

It’s probably a good idea to ask yourself where dream messages come from.