Dream a Little Dream of Me.

I became inspired to write a small piece on dreams following a rather peculiar dream I myself had a couple of nights ago. It made me think about dreams in general and the way they affect us.

I am aware that dreams, as a whole, seem to be a bit of an ongoing mystery amongst the science wizards. Taken from Wikipedia:-

"There is no universally agreed-upon biological definition of dreaming.

General observation shows that dreams are strongly associated with REM sleep. REM sleep is the state of sleep in which brain activity is most like wakefulness, which is why many researchers believe this is when dreams are strongest, although it could also mean that this is a state from which dreams are most easily remembered.

During a typical lifespan, a human spends a total of about six years dreaming, (which is about 2 hours each night). It is unknown where in the brain dreams originate — if there is such a single location — or why dreams occur at all."

So, as one of those mysteries of life, many people speculate about them and why we have them. A high percentage people believe in dream symbolism - that dreaming a certain thing means that a good or a bad event is likely to occur in your life

Other theories I have heard include that dreaming is a way for the mind to "clear up" unwanted information or "data" whilst we sleep. Freud even went so far as to suggest that dreams protect our sleep.

Whatever the reason is, I personally love having dreams and hearing about other peoples dreams and listening to their interpretation of the dream.

I wonder - can dreams create a feeling of adoration, or even love, for someone? If you have a romantic, happy or even sensual dream about a person you know - whether you are close to them in life or not, could that dream mean you have feelings towards them, whether consciously or not?

On the other side of that, if you have a dream about a close friend or a loved one hurting you, either emotionally and physically, would you feel any differently about that person the next day? I know I have had a dream like that before and the next day I felt unreasonably stressed and irritable at that person and it actually took me until the evening of that day to realise why.

I also think that if you have a really quite frightening dream, be it violent, a horror movie scenario, or just featuring a personal fear, it is often difficult to completely get rid of that spooky feeling when you wake up - whether you wake up naturally or as a result of the bad dream.

I believe that dreams are an amalgamation of various components. A series of random images, events, noises, people and places which the brain tries to put in some sort of logical order as it 'unwinds' ready for sleep. For example, have you ever had a dream that has had a 'plot' similar to a storyline on a TV show or move that you watched recently? Do you ever dream about a person who you saw and spoke to that day?

I would love to hear your views and ideas on this - what do you personally think dreams are? Have you ever had a dream affect you outside of sleep?

Elisabeth

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Thank you for taking the time to read my first chronicle!

I appreciate my posts will be different to what you are normally used to seeing on here, but I do hope you'll enjoy them! I'll be writing on a different topic, idea or event every Friday; I am aiming to entertain as wide an audience as possible and I would love to receive any comments or suggestions you may have!

I look forward to many happy Friday's here!!