The Dream Dictionary: A Guide to Understanding and Interpreting Your Dreams

By Lauren Lingard

THE DREAM DICTIONARY

Never, in the history of man, have dreams not been questioned or pondered. As humans, we ask time and again what they mean and where they come from. Whether over centuries, country lines, or languages, humankind has come to determine that dr

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ingram Publishing
• Release date: Mar 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781761038358

Book preview

The Dream Dictionary

Introduction

Chapter One:  Why We Dream

Chapter Two:  Record Your Dreams

Chapter Three:  What Do Your Dreams Mean?

Chapter Four:  Recurring Dreams, Deja Vu, & Lucid Dreaming

Final Words

Introduction

Never, in the history of man, have dreams not been questioned or pondered. As humans, we ask time and again what they mean and where they come from. Whether over centuries, country lines, or languages, humankind has come to determine that dreams mean things, and what they mean can either be a universal concept, or simply just what they mean for us. In fact, it was the ancient Babylonians who first began recording their dreams, on stone tablets no less, for the purpose of interpreting them.

From the beginnings of society to the modern age, we look within to find answers to life’s most arduous questions, oftentimes the answers being already within us. Dreams have been a bandage and salve for some of these aching wonders. However bizarre, it is dreams that sometimes give us the best advice, clues, or ideas. Stephanie Meyer, after all, got the idea for her bestselling saga, Twilight, from a dream.

With the evolution of scientific inquiry, we know now that most dreams happen during REM sleep, when the brain is most active during the sleep cycle. Dreams during this period of time are rich and vibrant. We tend to remember these most graphically and in the most detail. While some experts claim that dreaming could be reduced down to the brain’s coping mechanism to deal with the daily stressors of life, others suggest that there is another force at play. Does this mean that the human brain is much more creative and imaginative than previously thought? What else is the brain capable of during sleep and what more can we discover about how we dream?

The series of images that our brain conjures come together, like a woven rug, to form a narrative or what we call a dream. A dream is nothing more than a quick succession of pictures put together from our brain, but they are placed together so quickly, it often feels as if we are watching a movie. While most people have between three and five dreams a night, most of those are quickly and easily forgotten. Some people do not even remember having dreams most nights. Although disappointing, it is important to remember that the dreams still happen, and most likely for a reason.

Through careful analysis and consideration, The Dream Dictionary seeks to answer questions about dreaming and offer perspective of what the little pieces of our dream puzzles mean. In these pages, maybe you, too, will find the salve or bandage your dream is trying to be for you.

Chapter One:  Why We Dream

A hotly debated topic, why we dream, remains a question we have yet to find many answers to. Many theories circulate, but there is a distinct lack of definitive answers as to why the brain chooses to give us these visual interpretations. What we know from recent studies is that the brain operates between a certain range of hertz during the sleep process that produces theta waves. This period of sleep is when most of the dreaming occurs. Evidence from a study on a group of twenty in the United Kingdom’s Swansea University, suggests that dreaming could be a coping mechanism to help with the emotional processing of difficult or stressful events.

Furthermore, one of the reasons that we sleep could be to help solve our problems and to use old memories before they are forgotten. It is no secret that the brain has a myriad of complex processes to deal with trauma, pain, and discomfort, so it is not a stretch to say that dreaming is an addition to these capabilities.

For a long time, theories have stated that dreams mean nothing and have just evolved from a process that the human body no longer uses. Others argue that dreams are a universal connection between humankind and the world we reside in, drawing upon the natural energy in the world to give us messages. This is harder to prove, of course, but it is a commonly held belief.

Similarly, theologians attest that Biblical resources mention that God gives dreams. Gods and Goddesses of Dreams are also littered across the pantheons of the ancient world. Morpheus, for example, is the Greco-Roman God of Dreams and Sleep.

What some experts have found, however, is that the brain simply