Dreaming
A dream can warn us of potential danger, and decoding our dreams can often help us to solve problems. Frequently, things that trouble us crystallize in a dream. Some dreams even predict the future. Studying and interpreting dreams isn’t new, as they have fascinated man since the dawn of time.
Dreams have been carved on cave walls, set in stone, and every Roman Legion had a soothsayer to try and make sense of ‘nocturnal visions’. In ancient times, priests consulted oracles and shrines for guidance, to try and make sense of dreams.
Our ancestors believed that dreams were messages from the gods, and in days gone by, interpreters of dreams were visited much as doctors are today. Times may have changed, but the fascination of dreams remains. Many now-famous people have put forward theories of dream interpretation.
Sigmund Freud thought that much of what we dream is in some way sexual. Another psychoanalyzer, Carl Jung, recognized that man has other deep desires to drive him. In his fascinating book, An Experiment with Time, Professor Dunne put forward the idea that all time is like a river, and that it can be navigated backwards or forwards in the vessel of dreams. Sleep is the road to dreamland. And these days, thanks to advances in medical science, we certainly know more about it than our predecessors did.
On average, we sleep for a third of each day; by the time we’re 75, we have slept for 25 years - and dreamt for 10 of them. That’s a lot of sleeping, and a lot of dreaming! Recent studies show that what occurs in dreams takes place in a real-life time-span, so, for instance, simple things like shopping or eating take just as long in a dream as they do in reality.
In more complicated dreams, however, where you’re, say, in far-flung places, you’re simply seeing the ‘edited highlights’. Studies also have shown that it’s possible to dream with your eyes open, which happens when the brain becomes overloaded with the toxins created by fatigue.
In extreme exhaustion, the person will succumb to the need for sleep - but the dream will be cut short by an inbuilt desire to survive, for example, if they have started dreaming at the wheel. It’s long been accepted that the ideal position for a good night’s sleep is to be on the right-hand side of the bed. The bed should be facing north-south, so that the body can make maximum use of the lines of magnetism running from the Poles. Try running your hands in cold water before retiring as well - it can get rid of surplus static.