Oneiric Musings...

I will admit it--I like to expand my vocabulary.  One of the courses I took at the local college after high school was called "Becoming a Master Student."  (I still have the textbook, in chapters in folders, in my filing cabinet).  One of the main things I remember from the course all those years ago was the lesson entitled, "Reading with a dictionary in your lap"  While this is not entirely practical--my dictionary is a hefty thing!  I still follow the spirit of the advice, while reading I will take note of an unfamiliar word or phrase and write it down for looking up.  I like to think I am a good enough reader that I can with hints from the context, guess or surmise the meaning of the word in question.  Still, I do check to ascertain that I did indeed comprehend the meaning.  I found a couple of words in the last book I read; obdurate, and lacustrine.  While looking up the former I came upon the word oneiric, and discovered the perfect word to describe what I want to muse about in this entry...Dreams, and dreaming.  Hang on, it could be a wild ride--thanks for bearing with me.

I have given this much thought over the years and have to admit, dreaming is an important part of who I am.  Unlike some tribes I have heard about, I do not think I can control my dream content or direction.  The only exception seems to be if I am about to be done harm, I can feel myself fighting through the layers of sleep to wake up, where I lay, consider the nocturnal cinema I just experienced, and decide if it bothered me enough to stay awake or try to go back to sleep.  Mostly time will pass, and I will eventually drift off again, not to be bothered by a continuation of the dream I was experiencing.  Occasionally I will have a dream that was disturbing enough that I will fully wake and have to ponder the message.  Not every dream I have is trying to tell me something.  I know some of them are so discombobulated and bizzare, that I take them at face value and enjoy them for entertainment sake.  I have dreams that don't need to be analyzed or thought through as the story plays out on the surface for me to see.  Some of these are entertaining at the time, but during waking hours I will realize that I have strong feelings about what happened, even if it was totally ficticious.  Case in point, I had a dream that involved a happy event and people I knew.  In the dream everything was hunky-dory, peachy-keen, but it was immediately upon waking I found myself feeling incredibly PISSED OFF!  I couldn't really see why--it was a dream, it didn't really happen, and I can say I am pretty sure it never will happen, so why the angry reaction?  All I can think is that some element of the dream hit a nerve deeper in my consciousness, but again it was fiction, created by my own brain, and honestly, even if the events had really occurred, would have been none of my beeswax!

My dreams are somewhat unique in that I can recall so much detail from them and the fact that I dream in colour.  I have been told by a Dr. that not many people truly dream in Technicolour.  My colours are vivid and memorable, and often times they are a contributing element I have to consider if I am deciphering a complex dream.  My family listened for years while I was growing up--as I would share the nocturnal shenanigans that took place in my head!  My aunt asked me if I would be interested in talking to a doctor she worked with.  This doctor was an anesthesiologist, and she was interested in the subject of dreaming, which made sense to me as her job was putting people to sleep.  I agreed and she came by to have a discussion on the topic.  I started by telling her that I had tried using a dream encyclopedia and other such books to try to extrapolate some coherent meaning, but that they often left me feeling even more baffled.  I can remember her saying "Let me guess--all your dreams end up looking like they are all sexual in nature?"  Exactly!  I was all of 16 at the time, so it seemed highly doubtful that every element in my dream was going to have a sexual meaning or connotation.  There were other things going on in my life that the dreams were a lot more likely to be representations of. 

Dr. was quick to go on to say ditch the books and use the technique of breaking down the dream into individual elements and then by personal association, figure out what each of the elements stands for or represents.  The use of this technique would give me the clearest personal interpretation of my dream.  The rest of our conversation involved me telling her some of my more memorable dreams through the years.  She walked me through interpreting some of the dreams that were more recent or baffling as I could compare what was really going on in my life to what the dream may have been trying to tell me.  It was a worthwhile conversation, and I still use the technique she suggested if I have a way-out there dream that does not make any sense in a literal way.  Some of my dreams have provided me with suggestions or resolutions, but some have actually scared me away from doing something I thought I really wanted to do.

I don't have the time to pick apart each and every dream I have anymore, but occasionally my gut will tell me I need to sit down and give a dream the attention it deserves.  In the next part |I will tell a dream-story, and then I will pick it apart by the elements and show a conclusion.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

to be continued....