Dream... Dream... Dream...

Dream … Dream … Dream
Dreams transform into thoughts
And thoughts result in actions …

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam travels all over India repeating this to the children he meets.

I was thinking till now that he was referring to dreaming with eyes open, about having a vision. I thought that this is different from the dreams one gets during sleep. The dreams that one has during sleep, I felt, were more related to the fears and disturbances that one has in day to day life. I now feel that I have found a different meaning and that both are related.

Read on. . Because dreams are very important and they give a lot of insight into the person that we are.

I recently came across the book “The Interpretation of dreams” which is a translation of Sigmund Freud’s acclaimed work on analysis of dreams. Interestingly I came across this book because over the past two months I got some slightly strange dreams which left me wondering whether I was undergoing a total change in character and I was wishing if I could find a way to interpret dreams!

After cutting through some psycho analytic jargons and some complicated sentence constructions I figured out what Freud was trying to say. The underlying thread behind Freud’s theory is that dreams are indeed a fulfillment of wishes. If these wishes are straight forward and backed by good intentions you will have a good dream. If the wishes are selfish and against someone (even indirectly) you end up having a bad dream or contorted dream. This is contrary to common belief (like what I had earlier) that dreams are due to external and internal stimuli or a manifestation of images that get embedded in one’s mind before he goes to sleep.

I was really intrigued by this approach and I personally feel that this idea is really ground breaking. When I analysed my recent dreams I could link them to Freud’s theory and interpret them as a wish that I had around the time I had those dreams. Dreams are very personal and can leave the person exposed but I will share with you two dreams I had recently.

The first one is straightforward. I dreamt that I was talking to a relative sitting in our old house and I suddenly noticed my mom sitting next to me. I was left speechless and I cried and cried holding her hand while she was comforting me with an assuring smile as if nothing had happened. This dream doesn’t need any explanation that it was a wish fulfilled. It has been two years since my mom passed away and I have missed her every moment.

Coming to the second one, this was strange. In this one I chased a fly which was bothering me all over my house and crushed it to death. This was the strange dream which really got me thinking whether I was undergoing a total character change and becoming ruthless. On some analysis I found that around that time I had this dream I was being tortured by someone who had come newly into my professional life. I had made some extreme remarks about him to my colleagues and team members. I had even said to others that this guy was biting me like a bug and should be killed. It was that wish that had got transformed into this dream. I eventually started focusing on other things and this person no longer means anything to me but I think he has really helped me learn a lot, this dreams theory being one.

I know that Psycho analytical theories might not really interest everyone but I really feel that dreams are important. Have a closer look at your dreams and that will help you learn more about yourself. However you don’t need to share your dreams with me :-)

If you have read this far, you might come back saying that you had a dream which was totally not related to any wish and you might be right. The answer to that from me would be that it was still triggered by a wish and the wish was to prove me wrong!