Thomas Choong
British Literature
Mr. Maite
9 April 2001
Dreams
You were lucky enough to make it as a contestant for the hot seat on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? But now you’ve made it to the hot seat, and you are asked the stupidest, easiest questions that even a four-year-old could answer. You make it all the way to the million-dollar question. You are asked: “What is the air speed velocity of a swallow?” You are confused by this question, because it doesn’t specify what kind of a swallow you need to answer for. Thus, you ask Regis: “Are you referring to an African or European swallow?” Regis fesses up: “I don’t know…….aah!” Regis is projected into the air, and goes through the ceiling. “YOU’VE WON A MILLION DOLLARS!!!” says a producer…and then you woke up.
By now, you probably know that every human being dreams while asleep. Many people believe that when we sleep, we are unconscious. In all cases, that is false. We can remember our dreams, and many people move around while they sleep. However, there is one stage of sleep where we do not move at all, we are virtually paralyzed. That stage is called REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. The dreams we dream during REM sleep are the most vivid and memorable.
Okay, so we all dream, but what justice does that do anybody? “I wanna know why we dream, and what dreams mean!” Sorry pal, “No one truly knows why we dream, or what dreams mean.” (Ennis, Parker 66) However, many theories have been made by scientists of the mind, such as Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Freud focused more on what causes dreams, while Jung focused on what purpose dreams serve.
Freud hypothesized that no matter what your dreamt, it was related in one way or another to repressed feelings of hidden desires, and that is what the unconsciousness is all about. That hypothesis has come under fire, however, and critics claim that Freud’s theories were formed only by looking at his own dreams, and not others. So many turn to Jung, one of Freud’s disciples. Jung hypothesized that the unconscious contained a “collection of many sorts of spiritual aims to be explored and welcomed.” (Pliskin, Just 42)
So you want to know what dreams mean? Here’s an example of a dream:
You are in your room studying, when you discover that your apartment is on fire. You forgot to turn the stove off, and resulting from that, the pot on the stove caught fire. You can’t exit out of the apartment from the main entrance/exit, and you can’t as well escape from the window, because you’re on the 10th floor of an apartment building. A fire truck arrives, and they bring the ladder up to the 10th floor window, and a fireman helps bring you to safety.
One way you could interpret your dream is that in your life, you made a big mistake, and you couldn’t find your way out of it. However, a friend came along and helped you get out of your hole, and as a result, you had a dream similar to your life event. Or, you could be in big trouble at the moment, and the dream could be telling you that help is on the way.
Will we ever figure out what dreams really mean, and why we have them? Is there more to dreams than we think, and that they might have something to do with one or multiple supernatural being(s)? We may find out soon enough, or we may never find out. You, as an individual, know your dreams best, and thus you are the best person to interpret your own dreams.
Work Cited
Peirce, Penney. Dreams for Dummies. Foster City, CA: IDG Books Worldwide, 2001.
Ennis, Maeve; Parker, Jennifer. Get a Grip on Dreams. England: Ivy Press, 1999.
Pliskin, Marci; Just, Shari L.; The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Interpreting Your Dreams.
New York, NY: Amaranth, 1999.