Understanding Dreams: What they are and how to interpret them. Nerys Dee
going to crash’. Suddenly, the engine restarted. She awoke and realised that the aeroplane engine that stopped and started in her dream was none other than the intermittent snoring of her husband.
Smells are also integrated into dreams. When a dreamer moved into a flat over an Indian restaurant, he began to have dreams about nutmegs (the only spice he knew); this shows how the dreaming mind tries to logicise as well as symbolise.
Traditionally, it was thought that every disease produced a characteristic dream as a warning sign. Chest complaints were said to manifest as fights. When we speak of ‘fighting for breath’, we are, perhaps, glimpsing the origin of this belief. Many illnesses do, in fact, express themselves in dream form but not consistently enough to be totally reliable as warning signs. For example, a high fever is often interpreted by the dreaming mind as a fire. Similarly, a pain which is not sufficient to wake us but is nevertheless disturbing, may be symbolised as a thorn in the flesh, the pounding of sledgehammer or a wild animal biting into our body in the region of the pain.
Kidney complaints and problems associated with the urinary tract were, not surprisingly, said to conjure up scenes of water and over-full rivers, while seeing a canal in a dream heralded a birth. Stomach and digestive ailments give rise to dreams about disputes, while warnings of liver disease presented as green and yellow objects. These are the colours of bile, a product of the liver. Anaemia was said to cause feelings of suffocation and weakness, again a representation of the physical symptoms.
These interpretations are unreliable indicators of ill health but, knowing that our bodies do ‘speak’ to us in ways other than through pain, it would be advisable to consult a doctor, should dreams of this nature persist.
Dreams are memories so in retrospect it is often difficult to be certain if an event really occurred or if it was a dream. One woman was so convinced that she had left her handbag on a train that she even telephoned the lost property office to enquire if it had been found. She was most relieved six months later when she found the handbag at the bottom of her wardrobe; she was also most perplexed when she realised it had been a bad dream and not reality.
Another example of a dream mistaken for reality is when we believe we are awake in the middle of the night, and see a person or ghost standing by the bed. Whoever it is we see is so real, and the memory so clear, that in the morning it is impossible to convince the dreamer that what occurred was actually a dream, and not a visitation. Dreams such as this are known as ‘false awakenings’ and account for many of the ghosts seen at night. But since we do not know everything there is to know about the dream state, who can say that the visitation did not take place, albeit in a way different to what we assume is normal? ‘Things that go bump in the night’ and other strange, unaccountable noises are also heard during false awakenings.
Just as we sometimes dream we are awake, conversely we can dream we are asleep and dreaming. This produces a dream within a dream. One explanation is that in such dreams we reach deeper levels of awareness, but since these dreams are often of a mundane nature, apparently of little significance and no more revealing than other dreams, there is no evidence to support this theory. The point of them may, therefore, simply be to emphasise the necessity of looking deeply into certain problems and situations.
Falling through space is a sensation we often experience soon after ‘falling asleep’ or ‘dropping off’ to sleep. It is thought to be the feeling of transition from the awake state to that of sleep. The feeling of unexpectedly stepping off a kerb followed by waking abruptly is a similar light, or early, sleep experience. Again, this is not a dream but is due to the sudden contraction of the muscles in our arms and, in particular, our legs. This is known as a ‘myoclonic jerk’, and a spasm of this nature is precisely what does occur should we inadvertently step off a kerb. Not surprisingly, our unconscious associates this with the real thing and so incorporates it into a dream event, so that it seems that we are, for example, falling through space or dropping down a well.
There are also ‘falling’ dreams which occur long after we have fallen asleep. Our dreaming mind creates these for a purpose. Not surprisingly, they offer a message telling us that we fear we are ‘falling from grace’, ‘being dropped’, ‘will fall upon hard times’ or have to go through an ordeal that will ‘bring us down’. There is an old wives tale associated with this dream which says that if you reach the bottom you will die. This is not true. Many have landed safely but we do usually wake up before we get there.
The feeling of being chased by someone or something, yet unable to run away or move, is also associated with the muscles in our limbs. During certain phases of sleep, in particular REM sleep, we are in fact paralysed. As with the myoclonic jerk, our unconscious awareness of not being able to move is often transformed into a scene in which we are rooted to the spot and cannot get away from whatever it is that is pursuing us. Sometimes the pursuer represents an aspect of the dreamer’s own hostile tendencies, and sometimes it is the hostile tendencies of others. If, however, we can consciously identify the thing that chases us during the night, and can turn to face it during the day, it will no longer haunt our consciousness or our unconscious.
walking and talking in our sleep
Sleep walking, known too as somnambulism, is an attempt to externalise a dream by putting it into action. Children do this far more than adults, probably because they are less inhibited and more agile. Most of us grow out of the habit but if an occasion arises which is severely distressing, we may, like Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, actively express the nightmare in this way.
Talking in our sleep is similar, in cause, to sleep walking. It is an attempt to consciously express a dream verbally. It is possible to carry on a conversation with a sleeping person who is inclined to talk in their sleep, and to receive replies, but these are sometimes unintelligible.
When we are under mental pressure or we are not well physically we are more likely to sleep walk or talk. Most of the time we do not come to harm when we sleep walk but this is not always the case. Some somnambulists awake and find themselves in real danger, so it is a practice which should not be encouraged. Precautions should, therefore, be taken, especially where stairs and open windows are concerned.
Apnea is a temporary cessation of breathing. New-born babies and young children frequently do this and it is alarming for those watching over them. The reason for this is that co-ordination between voluntary and involuntary responses in the body becomes temporarily dissociated. Holding on to the breath in this way causes carbon dioxide to build up in the blood and this, in turn, stimulates the respiratory system back into action, so normally there is no danger.
Premature babies are particularly prone to apnea and this is one reason why they are electronically monitored. If they should stop breathing, all that is