Dreams
Do you think dreams can teach you something about your life, stuff you need to learn? Can they offer clues to the psyche: hidden fears or beliefs, or help you with crucial decisions? Or are they just scattered bits you took in throughout the day: input, stimuli and thoughts you might not even have noticed as they happened?
The confusing part, I think, is that they are both. Sometimes the details are just random. Sometimes they contain deep meaning, clues to our desires, anxieties, choices. I think these clues come more readily because we have to submit to sleep; the controlling ego is disengaged. Other times, in my opinion, dreams offer proof that we can sometimes see the future. Examples for me usually center around the natural world.
One night a few years ago, I dreamt I was at a rock concert. Odd that it wasn’t a Prince concert or a Robben Ford concert, as that’s where I would more likely be, but I was at the show of a loud, heavy, aggressive band. At some point during the show, just before I woke up, the band brought out this huge, frightening, thirty-foot tall animatronic creature onto the stage. It was a monster; its legs were so long I could barely see its torso or head. It had that strange, frightening un-reality, oversized proportions you only see in the world of dreams. It was very tall.
I woke up.
The next day, at this beautiful music academy I teach at, a very gifted student named Bret gave me a CD by a band I had never heard before, called Evanescence. This was 2003 or so, and I hadn’t yet heard of them. I put the CD in, and was listening to it at one point during my hour and ten minute long, very rural, forested commute back to the Berkshires. About halfway home I turned a corner with the music up loud, and what did I see?
A moose. First time in my life. A giant buck sporting a full rack of antlers, and legs so tall that from my Volvo wagon I could barely see his head.
I was stunned. I love catching a glimpse of wildlife. Even just a porcupine or woodchuck. I just really enjoy it; it’s encouraging and inspiring somehow. I often see deer on my daily walk. Last year a beautiful brown bear and I surprised each other in the woods. We crossed paths, and the bear took off into the forest. I did not follow.
But I had never seen a moose in my life, and the striking feature, obviously, was its enormous size. To come upon a wild animal that large is a striking experience. I think that for me it was similar to how some people would feel if they walked into a room, and there was a movie star. It was a sense of, Oh, I know you… I’ve heard of you but never met you. And here you are, in the flesh. There was almost a kind of un-reality to it. But it was happening.
There he was, a full grown bull moose on the side of the road on Route 9. I got very close. He allowed me to gawk at him for a while, and then trotted out right into the middle of the road. I drove past him, turned around, and then beeped, flashed my lights, and talked out the window till I drove him up into the forest. A car accident with this fellow, I’m quite certain, would be catastrophic for all involved.
The next day there was an article in the Berkshire Eagle about the prevalence of moose in our area; apparently they had come down from the north: Vermont and Canada. I felt lucky to have had such a private, close-up experience with one.
So, just to bring us around again to my dream… . The skeptics might say it was just coincidence, but I don’t think so. I dreamt the concert because the next day I was to drive home with the CD playing loudly. I dreamt the music the way it was, because it was the closest I could approximate since I hadn’t yet heard that band. I dreamt the giant guy with the unbelievably tall legs because I didn’t know it would be a moose. I just had an idea of it, a somewhat indistinct one. I find that objects and details in dreams are often analogous. This seems to be how the mind works. Things are often not literal, they represent other things.
So yes, I think dreams can not only tell us things about ourselves, I think they hold clues to the future.
15. August, 2007 at 07:23
Tristan, we your mom and I have subconsiously tought you well. If you think hard you will know what I mean. As always you have a great mind and you are a free thinker very few of us in this world today. Love always Donna
15. August, 2007 at 11:10
Thank you! Stop back anytime. -T
15. August, 2007 at 16:38
[…] Submission –> <p> <b>Tristan L. Sullivan</b> presents <a href=”http://www.tristanluke.com/wordpress/2007/08/06/dreams/“>Dreams</a> posted at […]
4. October, 2007 at 17:09
Do you think the future is determined (therefore no free will?) and dreams give us a peek into this? Or perhaps the dream ended up influencing what was to happen later, sort of a catalyst in creating what would later become real?
4. October, 2007 at 17:41
Hi Ben. Thank you for stopping by; come back anytime. Your question is a fascinating one. I’ve thought about it many times… I guess in the end I would have to say that I think finding the answer inspires us to find new ways of thinking about reality. Your second suggestion is a really interesting one: Ideas impressed on the swirling mass of possibilities influence and create actual real life events. My sister and I were talking about this… I asked her: if a guy ties his bike to a bike rack and he has a bad feeling about it… and later comes back and it’s stolen, then what’s going on here!? It’s a chicken and the egg thing. I asked her, did someone steal that bike because he was thinking about it, or was he thinking about it because the someone was about to steal that bike? She said she thought it would be hard to separate the two… that they kind of blurred together. So then i picture a kind of velocity, like a momentum that event has, and the more he thinks about it the more likely it is. It would definitely be a reminder to him to listen to his gut. So that’s what happens with me; I’m learning more and more each day to trust my feelings about things… they’re the best guide I have. Even silly little things like which way to drive home after work. I feel it out.
In the case of my dream, I think that event was definitely destined to happen, and the dream prophesized it.
5. October, 2007 at 16:42
[…] Dream precognition weirds me out because doesn’t it pre-suppose that there’s no such thing as free will? If that’s the case, I guess I have no choice but to share with you Tristan Sullivan’s account at Imagine, titled simply Dreams. […]
14. October, 2007 at 12:37
[…] L. Sullivan presents Dreams posted at […]
22. October, 2007 at 07:33
Hi,
I’ve always had very detailed dreams since I was a kid, and would write down the more interesting ones. I continue to have them.
I also have occasional precognitive dreams. Nothing dramatic- just small events in my everyday life. For instance, I mostly see words during hypnopompia and I later come across them during my writing or research. For instances, I recently saw the word ‘Dadu’. At that time I did not know what it meant and later during my research on the saint poet Kabir, I came across a reference to the sect of Dadu Panthis who are followers of Kabir. On another occasion, I saw a bright pink dress during hypnogogia and later I came across a photo of one of my relatives wearing the same saree !! The photo was taken recently so the possibility of my having seen the photograph some time in the past and then dreaming about it is ruled out. This makes me wonder that whether even minor happenings and encounters in our every day lives are predetermined ? I’ve had some other interesting experiences which I have mentioned in by blog: http://duskfalls.wordpress.com/. Please check them out. I would like your views on them.