THE QUESTION OF DREAMS

[leif ericson]

i have been talking on some other posts about wanting a DREAM
forum and i would like to know what people think about dreams in
general. what are they and how do they effect our general mental
health. are they important or are they just meaningless junk our
brains spit out when they have nothing to do. what IS the subconcious and how are we effected by it ?  i'm facinated about
dreams and curious to know who else is.      l.e.


p.s. i would love to here from any experts in the mental health area as to what the latest THINKING is on what role dreams play.

[oceans3]

yeah, i thought that would be a good forum (animal/pets) since most of us like animals better than people! LOL...

[leif ericson]

wow, thats a good one too !!!                l.e.

[oceans3]

dreams is a good one! i love to analyze my dreams and others. i have been interested in this for many years.
i would also love to see a vetrinary forum too!!

[leif ericson]

med help is all knowing, if they want to they will create a dreams forum !         l.e.

[SNORCHY]

I think it's a great idea. Have you formally presented the idea to MedHelp?

In my dreams the deceased are people that were in my life, not usually famous people. They are very integrated into the dream, and I have full on conversations with them. Sometimes when I wake up I'm thinking how great that was to "see" them!

[leif ericson]

yeah it's wierd isn't, i see them once in a while in dreams that have nothing to do with them, they just hang around on the sidelines so to speak, like their observing, it makes me laugh.
and these people have been dead for years, it's not like i even think about them on a daily basis, but there they are. movie
stars and other personalities appear too so i guess theres nothing magical about it, just our heads playing games with us !
               l.e




p.s. i would love a dream forum so people could describe dreams
and talk about them in detail, i think it would be facinating.
we talk about everything else and people have shared experiences
and thats what makes this site worth while. why share everything
except dreams ?

[SNORCHY]

I hav those dreams too where people who have died are there. They seem alive in the dream, but even in the dreams I know they're dead. Sometimes we even have conversations about their death! I think it's a way to spend time with them.

[leif ericson]

hey, thanks for the interest. nothing bad happened (if thats what you mean) to make me turn athiest, i guess i just got too
into learning the truth about the world and it's many faiths that i sorta grew out of it.  i became a hard core realist,
and even though i follow the judeo-christian ethical code
i don't believe in a god or gods or anything "mystical" !  
hope that helps answer your question.         l.e.

[pertykitty]

leif i respect your views whatever they are. i just wonder what makes a catholic boy convert? did something happen or not happen?

[glad2bamom]

Love you, leif.
have a great day, and for some strange reason, I can see you as an altar boy.  Sor of fits the personality!

[leif ericson]

i won't repsect you any less for sure, but i don't know about
the god talking in MY dreams thing. i was raised catholic
and went to private schools and was an alterboy and the whole nine yards, but i'm an athiest, sorry.  however i would never discount something involving god cause after all atheism is a faith too, not a hard science, so maybe your right. one thing
is for sure though, dreams can (not always) but can be very important and do effect our lives.             l.e.

[leif ericson]

i have lost family too, and i see them in my dreams sometimes
and i often KNOW that they are dead IN the dream and i get a big kick out of aksing them what they are doing in my dream,
and i enjoy their visits alot. wierd i know, but it makes me
happy to tease them sometimes about popping up from time to time
when i least expect them.        l.e.

[Kate987]

Hey,
I never was really big into the whole dreams have meaning thing until April.  My old neighbors who are like my parents moved to Phoenix to be near the Mayo clinic because the wife Shirley had a recurrence of breast cancer.  We talked to each other every weekend, and I would talk to the husband online multiple times a week.  Around April all the way until July I hadn't heard a word from them, they never returned my phone calls or emails or anything.  I had a dream in the beginning of April and multiple times there after, that I was at Shirley's funeral and could see her casket and her husband crying.  It turned out that Shirley was out of remission again and was dying, it was her wish that no one knew about it, and she passed away in late July.  
In July I started having another dream that re-occured about my boyfriends grandma being in the hospital and my boyfriends mom crying.  In late July my boyfriends grandma had a heart attack and a couple of weeks later a stroke.
So now needless to say I am a believer in that dreams really can be a warning in some cases.  I hope everyone is having a good night!
-Kaitlin

[germanian]

I have always had very strange dreams and vivid dreams. Nothing that would make any sense in real life if you look at it at a quick glance but to analyse these dreams can make sense of not what they mean but you can learn a great deal from the images that play in your mind. In one dream I recall I'll get shot (well actually not sure if a gun fired as I don't see or hear a gun fire just a swoosh of air) and the bullet kills me. The bullet then turns into an egg which is being being boiled in a pot. In effect I become the pot which depending how you look at it makes no sense but I think its all about understanding the subconscious part of your brain. I analyse my dreams. The bullet in my dream was there to kill me whereas the egg being boiled was also killing the embryo inside it. Then I'll think about the things that make sense about the dream. An egg would not boil easily if it were placed in a pot of air the same way the bullet being fired would most likely not travel well under water in an attempt to shoot me. Why was the egg being boiled and why I was shot I don't know. Was it a comparison of efficiency or was there even an obvious purpose?
bullet>air>
pot>water>
mind you without heat none of these happenings could occur but that is the simple answer and everything in between can be pondered over endlessly about the composition, density, mass sound and taste or feel. I don't know if any of you have heard of image streaming before but it is an exercise used to increase intelligence significantly by strengthening the connections between the left and right side of your brain and it's very effective for problem solving and the process revolves around the images and active dreams that everyone has constantly during day and night. The more you practice it the sharper your cognitive functions become and the more sense you learn to make of images that play in your mind which often hold the answer to a problem you may come across and have difficulty solving. If you want to find out more about it check it out here.http://www.winwenger.com/imstream.htm
Image streaming and dreaming go hand in hand so I thought it would be worth a look if it is dreams we are discussing.

[JoAnnaRF]

My Mama died almost 10 years ago. Anyone who has lost a parent knows just how difficult that can be.. Well not long after she died, I started having a dream. It was her and I having dinner in an old diner. We just sat and talked. Now, years later, anytime I start missing her or needing her, when I lay down to go to sleep, I can whisper in my mind to my mama to meet me in the diner and she does. I will have my familiar dream and wake up not remembering all that we talked about, just that we did.
Strange? Yeah. Not sure how all of it works and am also really curious about dreams. My mom was always fascinated with her own dreams and would even get up and write them down in a dream diary so that she wouldn't forget them as we often do. I wonder if that's why she visits me in mine.
--J

[glad2bamom]

Leif--
Honestly, my dreams are where I hear God talking to me.  I know, I know...that sounds crazy...but truly, after I've prayed and prayed, and don't seem to get an answer, if I just listen, I will hear Him in my dreams.  

Yes, this will cause me to lose favor with some on the forum--I am a Christian, and do believe that God desires to have relationship with me.  (I'm really laying it all out there now, aren't I?)

Wow...deep for the Men's forum.
Let's make it a mens' issue.  I'll bet that just as men "hear" differently than women when they're awake, I'll bet that men "hear" differently when they dream.  What do you think, men?