Why are we so obsessed with dreams?

[Deleted]

What I want to know is if anyone else has this happen to them:

You are waiting for something (getting up for school, meeting someone, etc) and you fall asleep. Then you dream of the thing happening (you going to school, or goign with a friend, etc) and during the dream you realize its just a dream and you better wake up or you'll be late.

Those dreams usually mean something bad, heh.

 

[Instinct Blues]

This just reminded me of this

Basically that why wouldn't anyone be concerned or at the very least somewhat interested in dreams? Sometimes they can reveal more about yourself than you'd care to admit when you're awake. Plus there are dreambooks out there that have analysises of typical dreams that people may have during certain situations ig there wasn't this common thread they'd be far less interesting.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Well I can't speak for anyone else here (I'm sure everyone has their own reasons for (dis)interest in dreams). My interest in dreams comes to a social/emotional level. Usually if I'm troubled or faced with a problem, I turn to a dream for the solution. More often than not, it provides a one.

Also I do have a very special interest in my recurring dreams; which almost always carry a message. Sometimes I have dreams that are prophetic; sometimes my dreams seem to carry on where the last one left off, sometimes for weeks and weeks like a show on the telly. They're weird, they're wonderful and I love having them.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Because they are sometimes freaky... I had a dream over a year ago that I did something and it ended badly... Well, the next day at school I though "fuck that, it was just a dream" and did the thing anyway... it ended horrible and ended up causing a long chain of events/depression/other shit that I think (hope) has finally ended...

 

[Bored Tomatoe]

Because they're just too strange to ignore...

 

[lwm3398]

for some reason, every time i get a lucid dream, it always turns into a nightmare because of my own actions in the dream.

Sometimes I notice I'm in a dream, then think "Oh shit, it's a dream! Don't think of axe murderers and evil dolls!". Then what happens? Those things appear.

 

[Sightless Wisdom]

Well you can learn a lot about how the brain works from dreams. They are a very interesting phenomenon and they are useful for psychological and neurological study.

 

[Ekonk]

Because in dreams anything is possible. Anything. Most people just don't know how to control their dreams. It's possible, though. If I could learn that I'd neve wake up again.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Spoiler

Because we spend a huge chunk of our lives asleep and dreaming. If I spend a lot of my time in some dreamland, I'd be pretty damn curious to know the meaning behind any recurring motifs that keep cropping up. And that's the thing: many people believe that dreams are a connection to our subconscious.

You've heard of Freud, right? The single most famous psychologist of all time. Well into his dream theory. Same with Carl Jung. Heck, the whole idea of Jungian archetypes is linked with dreams, as it is in dreams that our subconscious presents us with images of the anima, or the shadow, or the other archetypes. That's the fundamental point. You seem to believe that dreams are meaningless images, the mental equivalent of brain doodles, and thus to have an interest in them is to have a 'morbid fascination' with something fundamentally meaningless. Whereas millions of people around the world, including psychologists and scientists, believe that there may be more to our dreams, and they tell us more about ourselves than we could possibly believe.

The human brain is the single most complicated object in the known universe. Why is it 'morbid' to take an interest at the images it produces while it's asleep? How can you say if a dream is 'seemingly useless' to someone if you're not the one who dreamed it? It seems to me you need to read up on a little psychology, if only to understand how spectacularly mind-bogglingly complex the human psyche is. Once you get a handle on that, you'll maybe see why people have such an interest in dreams.

Two things about Freud...

One, much of his work has been discredited. They're recognized as huge leaps forward in psychology, but he missed the mark on a lot. Though I'm pretty sure he's works on dreams at least partially stand today.

Two, the Soviet Union had plans to infiltrate a large amount of Freudian psychotherapist into the United States to make us all crazy and confused. Weird, eh?

 

[Mr.Mattress]

Because dreams can be awesome or frightening, and people search for meaning in everything, whether it's there or not.

 

[Doclector]

Because dreams provide can provide insight into our own minds, to depths of which that we can find out things about ourselves that we may have not realised, or at least, might simply not want to.

 

[Rakkana]

I lucid dream often. And I can control what happens inside a dream. It's the best thing ever.

I would have said something smarter but the first response said everything.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I think it is because we are free from all laws in our dreams. Complete freedom to do whatever you want but you have no control...

Fascinating to me at least.

 

[Sneaky-Pie]

It's because dreams are the windows to ourselves in parallel universes.

Duh.

 

[likalaruku]

Dreams are dreams. You barely remember 1/100th of them when you wake up.