What do you dream about?
I have some commonly recurring dreams… In one, I am slowly losing my teeth. It will start with one falling out and the others becoming loose and by the end of the dream, I have no teeth left. I usually bolt awake from this dream and, when I realize that I still have a full set of teeth, I am so relieved, I just laugh the dream off. But it is disturbing.
Before I went back to finish college, I commonly dreamt that I was back in school, I’m not sure if it is high school or college, but I can’t get my legs to move. It’s like I’m trying to walk in quick sand and getting nowhere fast. When I started back to college, I stopped having that dream and recently, I dreamt that instead of not being able to move forward, I was rollerskating almost out of control through a school campus. The symbolism of those two dreams seems pretty self evident.
I don’t know if I really believe that every dream is significant and means something or not but I recently wrote an article on the topic. I interviewed Ivy Norris from the Oklahoma School of Metaphysics and I also watched a seminar by G. William Domhoff, a professor at U.C. Santa Cruz who has been studying dreams for three decades. The two have very different beliefs on the topic both of which are very interesting.
I think the topic of dreams and what they mean is especially interesting because, like some other topics such as what happens after death, it’s almost impossible to know the truth. People can speculate all they want but until some real, solid science clears up the question, it will always be speculation.
Anyway, what do you dream about? Have you had any of these common dreams? What do you think dreams mean?
Here’s my article that was published in The Oklahoman on Jan. 4, 2009. There is a sidebar about G. William Domhoff’s studies below.
Subconscious is often a key to sleep-time imagry
By Heather Warlick
What did you dream about last night? Did your teeth fall out or did you fly? Maybe you died or someone you know did. Or maybe you were back in high school and realized suddenly that you were naked. These are among the most common dreams people report, said Ivy Norris, field director for the Oklahoma Schools of Metaphysics, and they all mean something.
Many dream researchers, Norris included, think that understanding your dreams can lead to significant improvements in your waking life.
“If people know what the symbols represent, then they know what part of themselves that they’re running from or that they need to face or need to embrace,” Norris said. For example, dreams of death represent changes in your daily life, as do babies in dreams. Cars in dreams represent the physical body and can indicate health problems. And animals represent habitual behaviors that can be detrimental and need changing.
People in dreams represent aspects of the dreamer. People of the opposite sex represent subconscious aspects of the dreamer while people of the same sex represent aspects of your conscious mind with which you’re more familiar.
Dreams are a universal connection, Norris said, because almost everyone dreams and a “symbolic universal language of mind” applies to anyone at anytime. Many dreams have very specific interpretations. Here are some of the most common dreams and their interpretations or symbolism.
→Dreams of flying. Dreams of flying represent feelings of freedom that may result from an instance when you overcame a limitation or obstacle. Usually, children have more flying dreams than adults, Norris said, because children are more open to their possibilities, and adults have often accepted limitations imposed by society.
→Teeth falling out. Food in a dream is symbolic of knowledge because food nourishes the physical body and knowledge nourishes the soul. Teeth are a means to break down food or knowledge. When your teeth fall out in a dream, it could signify that you feel ill-equipped to break down the knowledge that you have available, that the way you break things down has changed. That change can be either positive or negative.
→High school dreams. Either you’re woefully unprepared for a big test or you’re naked. High school is a place of learning from the past, Norris said, and dreaming of being unprepared for a high school test can indicate a struggle to access information you need to handle in your life.
Being naked in a dream indicates open and honest expression. Clothes represent how we express ourselves and the face we show the public. If your dream nudity makes you feel embarrassed, this could mean that you need to work on being more open and honest in your daily life. If your nudity doesn’t bother you, you are more comfortable with your self expression.
→Recurring dreams and nightmares. Recurring dreams are your subconscious mind’s way of trying to get your attention. A recurring dream is a step down from a nightmare that is a louder, more insistent way your subconscious mind communicates. If you have a recurring dream, Norris recommends trying to stop in the dream and identify what the dream is trying to tell you. That could mean asking someone who is chasing you what he or she wants as in the case Norris recalls of a woman who dreamed for years that an old, haggard woman was chasing her around her home. When she finally stopped in the dream and asked the old woman what she represented, the old woman suddenly turned into a beautiful young woman and replied, “I represent your question of ‘what if?’”
Researcher says dreams correlate with age, gender
By Heather Warlick
Published in The Oklahoman, Jan. 4, 2009
Not all dream researchers agree about the symbolism of dreams.
Ivy Norris, field director of the Oklahoma School of Metaphysics, said she believes almost all dreams are important and can be interpreted. But some researchers believe dreams are more a result of waking concerns.
One such dream researcher is G. William Domhoff, an author and professor in psychology and sociology at theUniversity of California, Santa Cruz, who has been studying dreams since the 1960s
In April 2008, he gave a lecture titled “The Awesome Lawfulness of Your Nightly Dreams” in which he outlined the results of his most recent research. In the lecture, Domhoff discussed some consistencies he found in his dream studies that led him to believe that dreams are usually based on plausible situations, are less bizarre than is often thought, and that dreaming is a gradual cognitive achievement that increases as people mature.
Dreams correlate with age, gender, culture and personal preoccupations, he said.
With his findings, he refuted the popular dream theories from Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Freud’s belief that the function of dreams is to preserve sleep is contradicted by the fact that babies and some adults rarely dream but sleep well, he said.
Jung’s theory that dreams compensate for underdeveloped aspects of the psyche rings untrue to Domhoff because several studies indicate that people most often dream about things they are concerned with in waking life.
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Comments
I believe that the zombies represent Satan and his evil empire.In prophesy a woman sometimes represents the church.The church is not the building but the people.I beleive the woman represents God’s unbeleiving unsaved people.Usually When a beleiver trys to win over a non beleiver the nonbeleiver runs away and thinks the beleiver is a crazy religous freak when that is actually not the case at all.The woman thinks you are a zombie when that is actually not the case at all.When a person beleives with all there heart with out a single doubt it is because God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit has given that person every reason to beleive that he exists. I could be wrong but I beleive that God is telling you that you will try to convince people that He exists so that they will see how important repentance and salvation really is and most of them will think your crazy(like a zombie).But don’t give up telling people about the goodness and existence of God just because they think your crazy.I beleive thats why you didn’t give up in the dream and you kept looking for her so you could save her from the evil. But don’t worry because when your doing God’s work he will protect your mucus membranes from being infected by the evil blood. In other words God will protect you from satan and his evil empire while you are doing his work. I beleive the wheat harvesting machine represents you havesting souls for God.You know God harvests souls like we harvest wheat.We keep the good wheat and throw out the bad wheat.God keeps the good souls and burns the bad ones. Satan uses the T.V to make society think its okay and perfectly normal to do things that God cannot stand.We are living in the last days(years)And God is about to shake rattle and roll this world so that people will wake up and realize that they need him.Im not saying it is wrong to watch T.V Im just saying remember the song,”Be carefull little eyes what you see, be carefull little ears what you hear”.The m-16 and the pile driver probably is God showing you that he will equip you with the necesary weapons needed to battle satan and his evil empire. Man thats a deep dream you had there dude.Anyways if you are not a beleiver then seek the Lord with all your heart and he will show up. And when he does you will probably be on fire for the lord and all the sudden your dream becomes reality symbolically of course. I have no Idea what the immune teenagers could represent and if this dream is recurring its because you havn’t figured out the meaning of it and God is trying to get through to you.
Zombies are the best of the horror genre. Ugly, smelly, mindless, flesheater make for the Best Zombie Movies. Unlike any other movie monsters, zombies have no agenda, master plans or for that reason any plans at all. No feeling evil or good. They are just plain fun.
I dream about things that stress me out, relationship, no money, no job…I dream about very legitimate problems that are a cause of stress in my life. Even if I’m doing well financially and relationship-wise if a slight problem arises w/ a coworker I’ll dream about it. In those cases I’ll even dream about things that happen (everyday life) in non-stressful situations. It’s so ridiculous that my dreams are just my feeling of reality played back. What does this mean?
I’ve been dreaming that I have to save someone from zombies. It’s a woman, but I don’t know who or where she is. All I can do is look for her and every path I take is dense with yawning zombies shuffling along moaning and pointing at me. I always seem to run across a bag of grenades, an M-16, a pile driver, or one of those wheat harvesting machines. It’s always a bloody mess, but I never get hurt. I’m only concerned about the blood getting my mucous membranes that, as in most zombie movies, will infect you with the zombie virus. I’m never scared in these dreams, but always anxious because I really, really need to find her because of some unresolved issue I that can never quite put my finger on.
A few other details:
* The zombies are always wearing suit and ties.
* They all have a striking resemblance to Ted Danson.
* I encounter many long, mirrored corridors like at a circus.
* The woman is always running away from me like she thinks I’m a zombie.
* When I chase her down, I realize I’m acting just like a zombie.
* Every dark room is equipped with “The Clapper”. No light switches.
* Every dark room is filled with clapping zombies.
* Every tv I run across is playing some MTV reality show.
* Young teenagers seem to be immune from the virus because their always looking at their cell phones.
Any thoughts? Interpretations?