Chapter 2
DISCUSSION
In what
ways do dreams affect a person’s decisions?
Famous Dream-based Decisions in History
A. Inventive Breakthroughs
Dreams
play a crucial role in helping people handle challenges of surviving and coping
in a world filled with complexity. They even lead to some scientific
discoveries in the history. Professor
Deidre Barrett, from Harvard Medical
School, one of the persons
interviewed in the BBC’s documentary entitled “Why Do We Dream?” narrated by
Steven Mackintosh, enumerated the breakthroughs that notable persons have
achieved by way of their dreams. She said that dreams have been responsible for
numerous scientific discoveries, important political events, novels, films, and
works of visual art, and that these are the reasons why dreams are really
important. One event that has been credited to a dream is the confirmation of
the theory of chemical transmission of the nervous impulse by the Nobel Prize
winner Otto Loewi. During Loewi’s time, the common held belief is that there is
an electrical transmission of the nervous impulse, in contrast to his newly
held idea. He was not able to prove his hypothesis until 17 years later when he
had a remarkable dream:
"The night before Easter
Sunday of that year I awoke, turned on the light, and jotted down a few notes
on a tiny slip of paper. Then I fell asleep again. It occurred to me at 6 o'clock in the morning that during the night
I had written down something most important, but I was unable to decipher the
scrawl. The next night, at 3 o'clock,
the idea returned. It was the design of an experiment to determine whether or
not the hypothesis of chemical transmission that I had uttered 17 years ago was
correct. I got up immediately, went to the laboratory, and performed a single
experiment on a frog's heart according to the nocturnal design." (www.brilliantdreams.com)
It took Loewi more than a decade to
prove his idea. He had undergone a series of tests and experiments in order to
satisfy his critics but only a single dream became the key to his labor. The
turning point in his life is not when he dreamed about it but when he opened
his mind to the message of his dream, that is, when he jotted down a few notes
right after waking up. Then, he decided to perform an experiment based on the dream-given
design, and that decision contributed to the history of science.
Another dream-driven scientific
discovery is the formation of chemical or organic "Structure Theory” when Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz
discovered the tetravalent nature of carbon. Kekule dreamed about the
atoms gamboling, the two smaller atoms united to form a pair; the larger one
embraced the two smaller ones, the other larger ones kept hold of three or even
four of the smaller, while the whole kept whirling in a giddy dance. “I saw how
the larger ones formed a chain, dragging the smaller ones after them, but only
at the ends of the chain...but I spent part of the night in putting on paper at
least sketches of these dream forms. This was the origin of the Structural
Theory," (www.brilliantdreams.com) Kekule said in his
speech at the Deutsche Chemische Gesellschaft (German Chemical Society). Friedrich
August Kekulé von Stradonitz did not only experience a single
dream-driven breakthrough, he had dreamed two discoveries in the scientific
history.
The “Why Do We Dream?” documentary
further stated another superb work of dreams like Elias Howe’s design of the
first sewing machine. The story of Elias Howe's invention in 1845 of the sewing
machine is a struggle. He had a hard time coming up with a machine that is
capable of spinning and weaving as fast and as efficient as possible. He cannot
figure out on which part of the needle should the hole be located until he fell
asleep at his workbench. According to an article from www.jeremytaylor.com, in
Howe's dream, he was being haunted by cannibals in an African jungle. Despite
his efforts to flee from these tribesmen, the natives still captured him. As he
is managing to escape through heaving himself upward from the pot where he was
supposed to be boiled alive, the natives poke him back down to the pot again
with the use of their pointed spears. As he woke up, Howe realized that the
sharp spears have holes on their points. This realization brought him to the
idea that in order to make an effective sewing machine, he has to place a hole
at the point of the needle and move the thread through this hole.
Scientists and the sovereign
scientific culture point that the sole source of one’s creative ideas is one’s
critical thinking or analytical skills, and discourages the belief that some
creative ideas resulted from mystic sources such as dreams. Although this is
the dominating conviction among the patrons of science, still, the scientific
method theoretically teaches students that any idea is acceptable as a
hypothesis regardless of its source and claims that what makes an idea a
scientific thought is through experimentation. This only proves that what makes
an idea significant is not the source (dream) but the verifications, proofs and
applications provided by the person (dreamer) afterwards.
B. More Ideal Career Path
Dreams have been accountable for
causing very significant events in history. The historical works of dreams
involve innovative breakthroughs, decision-making, and notable precognitions.
These phenomena have been arduously interpreted by numerous dream researchers
and experts. These include the Frankenstein, the Beatles song “Yesterday”, and
the dream-based writings of the novelist Stephen King.
As one of the most read novel of all time, Mary
Shelley’s Frankenstein has gained fame in every part of the world. The novel’s
entertaining plots are not only limited within its contents, but also beyond
them: the mystical origin of the novel. According to the brilliantdreams.com,
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley has narrated the background of the novel, how she
come up with such a brilliant story, in the introduction of the Frankenstein.
As Mary Shelley described, in the summer of 1816, while she was still nineteen
years old, she and her lover visited a poet named Lord Byron who challenged
them, together with the other guests, to write their own ghost stories. While
Mary was working on her own story, she fell into a vision with her eyes shut. “I
saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put
together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the
working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy,
half-vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the
effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous Creator of the world.” (www.brilliantdreams.com)
She woke up in terror. The dreamed idea kept
running inside her mind and the repetition of such memory kept on frightening
her. While trying to deviate her attention to something else in order to get
rid of that fearful dream, the ghost story recurred to her. “I have found it! What terrified me will
terrify others; and I need only describe the specter which had haunted me in my
midnight pillow,” Mary Shelley wrote in the novel’s
introduction. And that lead to her Frankenstein, an artistically written
dream-based story.
Another dream-credited career was Paul McCartney’s. As one of the most
famous singers and songwriters of all time, Paul McCartney has gained
popularity in every man’s melody across the world. According to the said site,
Paul McCartney was staying in an attic room of his family’s house on Wimpole Street when he dreamed of a sound of a classical
string ensemble playing a lovely tune. When he woke up, he tried to put the
lovely tune into musical notes through the use of the piano next to him. Then,
gradually, he finished the tune with all the chords needed to produce each of
its sound, and that lead to the most performed song in the world entitled
“Yesterday”.
Paul McCartney was amazed with the music he came up with for his band,
the Beatles. He admitted that he has not written anything like that before, but
what was magnificent was that he had the tune, and that made the magic worked. Truly, dreams
served as the way towards the revelation of genius ideas. But what is
magnificent in those dreams is not the revelation, but the application. Many
accounts have proven that dreams do have a purpose, and that the dreamer’s
responsibility is to live with that purpose.
Another career
accounted to dreams is Stephen Kings’ road towards success. The novelist
credited some of his works to his dreams. Stephen King is well-known in the
field of horror novels, and the miseries prevalent in his works were not
inspired by real-life incidents, but rather, by dream-based stories. In an
interview with Stan Nicholls for the SFX Magazine, Stephen said that while he
was on a plane, he dreamed about a woman who held a writer captive and killed
him, skinned him, fed the remains of the writer to her pig and bound his novel in his own skin.
“I
said to myself, 'I have to write this story.' Of course, the plot changed quite
a bit in the telling. But I wrote the first forty or fifty pages right on the
landing here, between the ground floor and the first floor of the hotel."
(www.brilliantdreams.com)
As Stephen has put it into words during the interview, he said that for
him as a writer, dreaming is like seeing something on the street which can add
up to his fiction. “Writers are scavengers by nature," Stephen
said. Dreams
do provide solutions and teach some points on certain aspects of a person’s
life, but they do not offer these things for no reason. Dreams make known to a
person all the things that he needs to be aware of, and one’s task is to apply
these things. Finally, after the application, the history will write the
dreamer’s story.
A person doesn’t have to become a
genius in order to dream big. He has to start dreaming in order to become a
genius. Each person dreams and these dreams serve one’s own needs. There is no
distinction as to the quality of dreams that those famous personalities had in
comparison with what an ordinary person has. These dreams only differ because
each person’s needs also differ. What is important is one’s capability to
harness these dreams in order for them to make great impacts and manifestations
in his realities.
Dreams really did create a great impact in
specific corners of the world’s history. But what is awe-inspiring is not the
dream itself, but the applications that those dreamers have done. Just as
theories generated need to be practiced, dreams also need applications and
manifestations in one’s life. The solutions will never be effective if they are
not tangible in one’s realities.
Nature-given
Purposes of Dreams
A. Dreams as
Problem-solvers
Many believe that every problem has its own solution, in the same way as
a padlock has its own key. Being able to unlock a particular problem is a
breakthrough. It gives a person the feeling of relief and victory. Sleeping
also offers keys to people’s padlocks by way of dreams. Dreams can really be
the solution providers in life, but still, they advertise these services in
their own remarkable ways: through distortions and symbolisms.
Dreams sometimes reflect the most recent difficulty that a person is
facing. People sometimes rationalize that the reason why such scenarios in
dreams happen is because individuals dwell too much on their problems so as to
penetrate the dreaming state. According to the article “Dreams Can Solve
Problems” by Miranda Hitti, dreams can possibly offer answers to problems
within a week after the trouble starts as the researchers say. In the stated
article, a particular experiment has been conducted involving 470 Canadian
undergraduate psychology students who are instructed to record their dreams for
a week. These students were able to rate how well they can remember their
dreams together with their dreams’ intensity, emotions, and impact. As the
study was pursued, the students noted that there are connections between the
dreams and the events that happen in their lives. They then rated their
confidence on the extent of the association between these events and their
dreams. Two judges were tasked to decide whether the dreams incorporate
solutions to problems arising from various events. The bottom-line is that
dreams really do try to offer solutions.
It is good to know that a part of a
person’s being is trying to help in solving one's problems. It is a comfort to
know that something inside a person is exerting an effort to contribute in the
minimization of problems. Dreams do try to offer solution, but the problem is
how people interpret these solutions. Maybe dreams are ready to hand the key
but the trouble comes when one perceived the key in a wrong point of view.
Usually, people start to formulate his own figures of his dream and come up
with solutions, but still, these solutions may not work in some instances.
Maybe one’s dream is right, but his figures are wrong. The limitation of this
study resides with one’s perceptive capacity towards his dream.
Miranda Hitti quoted Don Kuiken’s, one of the University of Alberta
psychology professors’ own opinion in this topic: "This suggests an
ongoing effort to resolve a problem in dreams during the week following the
emergence of that problem." Don Kuiken also added that there is something
going on with dreams that touches on and changes the solutions that people
already formulated.
Dreams may really povide solutions to people's problems and they may
also play a very significant part in the decision making process that a person
has to take. But the problem arises when people are too overwhelmed with their
problems, and consequently, forget to think about the solutions. Sometimes,
when people focus too much with the number of padlocks that obstruct their
ways, they lose the confidence to find each lock's key. People tend to magnify
the problems and to dwell too long on them, and, unknowingly, people minimize
the solution. If this scenario continues, there is a possibility that dreams
will only constantly reflect those problems, and, as a result, solutions become
obscure. Dreams are only the media of the mind. They serve as the link between
one's unconsciousness and consciousness. Dreams will only provide what the mind
already has, and if the mind isn't looking for ways to eradicate a person's
problems, then, dreams cannot also convey the solutions.
Numerous problems are the causes of
our confusion. But, some times, numerous solutions may also cause problems. If
people are bombarded with numerous solutions, it will be hard enough to choose
which one should be complied with. The alternatives also contribute to one's
confusion. But, what's important is to look for the trend or harmony that one
can find through all these solutions. Even though numerous duplicates are
present, still, the unifying characteristic of these keys is the thing that
counts.
Another article, from
dreamanalysis.info entitled “JungHYPERLINK "http://dreamanalysis.info/"'HYPERLINK
"http://dreamanalysis.info/"s Rediscovery of the Dream”,
explains how dreams can heal a person’s problems and teach him how to find the
answers by himself. According to the article, Carl Jung discovered the healing
mechanism of dreams for the brain through his patients. Jung encouraged his
patients to understand their own dreams and that their understanding will heal
them. As a result, many patients have solved their original problems and,
surprisingly, their dreams seemed to delve deeper to more complex and untouched
problems in their lives and would again provide the healing and answers.
Dreams do offer solutions, what one really
needs is the understanding. If each person can really understand his own
dreams, it will never be difficult for one to solve his own problems. But that
is the exact limitation of this field of study. Not all people can interpret
their dreams and that is an additional problem. One may come up with a possible
interpretation, but what if it is not what the dream portrays, or worse, what
if it is the exact opposite? The interpretation may either lead to solution or
destruction.
Often, our dreams keep on recalling
those problems and struggles that we are currently facing and also distort them
as if our minds begin to predict the probable outcomes of these events even if they
seem so vague, unrealistic, fictitious, and so out of control. Sometimes our
dreams give us hints on how to maneuver those circumstances in our lives but
oftentimes they seem so inapplicable, and we come up with the conclusion that
maybe those advices were so symbolic, that they are the answers that nature
doesn’t want to reveal to us directly, and puzzles that only ourselves can
decrypt.
B. Dreaming
Leads to Learning
People tend to become more alive
and energetic to learn new things and be more effective when it comes to
analyzing every situation if enough hours of sleep have been acquired to rest
persons’ minds and bodies. It helps people to think clearly and positively
without being weary when it comes to solving personal problems. One seems to
become more productive when the recommended hours of sleep has been met
compared to when a person failed to comply with it. But, is it really the
resting state that contributes to a person’s good performance or is it the
dreaming part that really works?
The article “Dreams Make
You Smarter, More Creative, Studies Suggest” by Rachel Kaufman of National
Geographic News states that dreaming may improve a person’s memory, develop his
creativity, and may help him to better plan or even predict the future. In a
study which was featured in the article, Sara Mednick conducted an experiment
where they proved that those people who had REM (rapid eye movement) sleep
which happens after an hour or more from the time a person slept, can easily
analyze and be able to relate one idea to another even though they do not seem
to have any connection at all. Also, she found out that REM doesn’t only boost
a person’s memory but also a person’s creativity in using a word to a different
context.
According
to the above mentioned article, dreaming would be a possible reason why people
who rested enough become smarter. Dreaming in a very vivid state (or REM sleep)
is what actually helps a person to become wiser. The article also stated that
the memories retained in people’s minds (which keep on coming back through
one’s dreams) and continuously being enhanced as they repeatedly being pictured
in the unconscious can help individuals formulate a plan for the future:
“Boosted by deep sleep, an improved memory may have yet one more benefit:
helping you imagine—and better plan for—the future.”
It has been said that
experiences are the best teachers. Whatever forms part of one’s memory is
considered an experience. Thus, memory is the wellspring of knowledge. A person
learns through his experiences and through the knowledge stored in his memory.
What is interesting to know is that people also learn while sleeping, that is,
while unconscious.
According to the “Why
Do We Dream?” documentary from BBC, it has recently been discovered that people
can use their dreams in order for them to learn in their sleep. The scientist
behind this breakthrough is Professor
Robert Stickgold from Harvard Medical School.
“Our brain is working on figuring
out the importance and significance of events from our days, how they fit
together with old events in our past, what they mean about likely events in the
future. And if that processing is functional, as I believe it must be, then our
dreams are telling us something about what's important to us and the meaning of
the events in our lives.”
-
Professor Robert Stickgold
Professor Stickgold
works on the study that would prove that dreams emphasize the importance of the
past experiences of a person with regard to the current learning that a person
acquires. In order to comprehensively explain it, the professor has devised an
experiment that reveals how dreams affect the learning aspect of a person.
In an experiment conducted by Professor Stickgold, the subject (John) was
allowed to play the game Alpine Racer
II, which is a downhill skiing simulator. Professor Stickgold is
expecting that all the knowledge he gained through the game will come back in
his sleep.
Once John was asleep, Professor Stickgold woke him up through the night
to see the changes in his sleep. Professor Stickgold found that while the subject
dreamed about the game, the dream began to draw on other memories. Through
this, the professor perceived a clear link between dreams and memory. John’s
late dream was that he was walking through the boot prints that another person
has made in the snow.
“I have this image that what's happening in the brain is not just paying
attention to the game but is trying to say, what is that like, what other
memories do I have that's like that? And he thinks about moving through snow
and I can just imagine the brain trying to say, so when I try to ski this next
time, shall I try to do it exactly the way I did it last time?”
-
Professor Robert Stickgold
Professor Stickgold saw that as the dream try to offer learning to the
dreamer about the specific game, it associates the game recently played to
other memories that closely resemble it. It is the way in which dreams provide
additional insight in order to help the dreamer develop skills on that
particular game and come up with strategies that are helpful in playing it. As
in real life, whenever people are facing a particular instance which greatly
disturbs them, the difficulty penetrates the dreaming state. The dreams
instinctively refer to the other memories of the dreamer that associate the
currently occurring circumstance, and trace back the actions that the dreamer
had already done in order for him to apply it to the latest problem.
Consequently, when John played the
ski game once again, his performance improved. This improvement proves that
dreams are really central to the way we learn. Professor Stickgold believes
that people are adding new experience to old memories, and thus, the birth of
learning begins.
The usefulness of memory is
not by the way men store and retrieve the information they have, but by the way
they associate these memories with currently occurring events. By finding resemblances
between the past experiences and the present ones, a person can effectively use
his memory in figuring out what those events mean about his future and how he
can use those information in maneuvering circumstances.
As what the Harvard psychiatrist,
Daniel Schacter, said in
an interview with the National Geographic News, “After all, dreams are a
different way of recombining aspects of past experience,"
Truly, learning doesn’t stop when evening comes, it still continues
during the sleeping state. People still learn while they are asleep and enhance
their skills through their dreams. Dreams are also one of nature’s ways of
teaching to mankind. Now, dreams can also be a great teacher of people’s lives.
C. Dreaming
Develops Personalities
According to the article “JungHYPERLINK
"http://dreamanalysis.info/"'HYPERLINK "http://dreamanalysis.info/"s
Rediscovery of the Dream”, Sigmund Freud’s theory about dreams is
centered on revelations that dreams wanted to disclose but which the dreamer
would rather keep hidden. Through examining dreams, one was forced to confront
what was suppressed and rejected within him. On the other hand, Carl Jung had
another interpretation. Jung believed that dreams reflect what was missing from
the dreamer’s consciousness, and the disclosure of this missing piece will pave
the way towards a person’s wholeness and indivisibility.
Carl Jung, as further explained by
the article, observed that dreams can sometimes contribute to one’s personality
development. He termed this as the force of individuation, which is the birth
of the idea about Self-development. The drive that acts within the unconscious
is the force that seeks consciousness, the force by which one will realize his
greater capability.
Many studies confirmed that dreaming is a way
that the unconscious wanted to be made known to the dreamer. People often
realize that their dreams wanted to give messages to them, and that is how the
unconscious acts. It discloses things that it wants the dreamer to know, like
the solutions to his problems and the ways how the dreamer can improve and heal
his own personality and way of thinking.
D. Dreaming Activates the Motivation System of the Brain.
From the “Why Do We
Dream” documentary, Professor Mark Solms of University
of Cape Town stated that the fact
that this part of the brain, the motivation system, is active during dreaming
suggests that dreams have some kind of motivated search in them as if the
dreamer is seeking something from his dreams. Professor Solms believe that this
seeking activity symbolizes the search for answers. “More likely, ‘cause it's
more general, an explanation is that we are grappling with some sort of problem
in our dreams and trying to find a solution to some matter of current concern,”
Professor Solms said. Another advantage of dreaming is that dreams help the
dreamer find the solutions to his currently occurring problems. Dreams offer
alternatives and the only task of the dreamer is to choose among these options.
Dreams’ capability to activate
people’s minds and to help persons plan ahead might really become very
questionable. People might only neglect this information and just allow themselves
to dream again, ignore and forget; dream, ignore, and forget; and the cycle
continues. People might think that this idea is not founded on firm bases and
might only mislead people. After all, who will labor so much on giving
too much attention to his dreams and then find out that it takes years to
decipher dreams’ codes? But what if the thing one deciphered can change hiw
life? That the idea which reality provides everyday is just the 0.01% of what
the decoded hint can give? That dreams can possibly enhance a person’s
capabilities and make predictions for his future? That these possibilities can
become probabilities (more possible possibilities) and might eventually lead to
realities?
E. Dreaming Maintains a Person’s Mental Health.
Most experts nowadays make use of a
person’s dream in order to detect personality disorders and mental health
issues. According to the article “Dreams and Personality Disorders” written
by M.Farouk Radwan, personality disorders create unpleasant emotions, and these
emotions are being sent by the subconscious mind through dreams to the dreamer
in order to notify him about this psychological impairment. Also, experts have
proven that waking people up just before they enter into a dreaming state, just
like what the stroke patients are experiencing, affects their behavior.
According to the article “The Importance of Dreams” from website People
With Potential, in one particular dream study, volunteers are woken up just
before they are going to have a dream then allowed to fall back to sleep. Even
though the volunteers still sleep the same amount of time as they normally do,
they are still observed to be disoriented, depressed, crabby, and quick
tempered. This only proves that lack of dreaming activity may impair a person’s
daily functioning and mental health. As the study was continued over several
nights, the subjects became over-sensitive, and lacked concentration and suffer
memory loss. Also, Walker suggests
that dreaming allows the brain to sift through that day’s events, detect any
negative emotion attached to them and then strip it away from the memories.
But, Walker emphasized that dreams
really do not make those emotional memories be forgotten, they just make those
memories become no longer emotional themselves. Dreamers are being helped by
their dreams to get rid of their negative emotions.
Factors that
May Contribute in Making Dream-founded Decisions
A. Ambivalent
Characteristic of an individual
Decisions originate from the numerousness of options. People are forced
to choose between blacks and whites, although others sometimes choose to settle
at the middle—at the gray region. Although some view this way of choosing among
alternatives as a coward approach of formulating decisions, some psychologists
view this as a sign of maturity. Ambivalent inividuals, those who are on the
verge of uncertainty among numerous choices, see all sides of an
argument and scrutinize them carefully, making lists of pros and cons, before
coming to a decision. In contrast with the black-and-white thinkers who have strongly positive or strongly negative views
and get mired in one point of view which may prompt conflict with others,
ambivalent people are capable of harmonizing things. According to Dr. Jeff
Larsen, a psychology professor who studies ambivalence at Texas
Tech University,
ambivalent people may be better able to empathize with others' points of view
and tend to have healthier coping strategies while other people are only able
to see one side of the story.
Through ambivalence, the openness of individuals to newly
held ideas can be a contributing factor in one’s formulation of dream-based
decisions. Since skepticisms have no room for ambivalent persons, these kinds
of individuals may be able to make the most efficient use of their dreams
because the drive to test and to have dream-driven testimonies is present to
these people. They make room for the possibility that those dream-related
studies have a rational sense in human life.
B. Previous
Experiences
Some people have already applied
some dream-given ideas into their personal lives based on the interviews
conducted for this research. Since these experiences are already present, they
can now conclude whether those dreamed solutions and premonitions are true or
not. Past experiences may contribute in formulating decisions based on dreams
because people have already acquired real life scenarios that would prove the
credibility of dreams. Still, a limitation arises because some may find dreams
as irrational and pointless parts of a person’s being which convey impossible
ideas. Some psychologists are open to these kinds of criticisms and bestowed a
notion that distorted and symbolic dreams have to be interpreted first before
speculating their resemblances to the realities.
C. Cognitive
Biases
The
article “Decision Making: Factors that Influence Decision Making, Heuristics
Used, and Decision Outcomes” by Cindy Dietrich, enumerated the different factors included
in the cognitive biases. These factors are belief bias, hindsight bias,
omission bias, and confirmation bias. Belief bias is the over reliance on prior
knowledge and previous experiences in arriving at decisions, hindsight bias
happens when people tend to readily explain an event as inevitable once it has
happened, omission bias is when people have the tendency to omit information
perceived as risky; and lastly,
confirmation bias is when people observe what they expect in observations.
Skepticisms about the importance of dreams and negative feedbacks and
rebukes are still predominant towards this field of study even up to this day.
Many scientists reproved those experts who specialize in the study of dreams
and argued that painstakingly examining dreams would not lead to ground
breaking breakthroughs. But that’s before the astonishing discoveries about the
magnificence of dreaming and how it can provide solutions to an individual’s
problems have been proven by numerous psychologists, neurologists,
oneirologists, and other experts in this field of study, and that include
Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.
Influences of Dreams to
a Person’s Decisions
A. Change in Point of
View
Beacuse dreams are unquestionably necessary in the
human life, they undoubtedly penetrate the mindset of a person. The assumptions
of a person differ, the way they view every circumstance also change, and their
way of seeing things change. Based on the inerviews conducted, people tend to
have their own interpretations of their their dreams. For example, a certain
lady stated that whenever one encounters an unclear water in his dream, it
symbolizes sickness either inside his family or among his relatives. She even
pointed out that if a dead person bothers an individual in his own dream, it
only means that person asks for some prayers from the dreamer. In this
connection, her life was devoted in finding some correlations between her
dreams and the reality. She judges these dreams based on her own experiences.
Her new point of view affected her way of seeing things and whenever she
encounters unfavorable signs in her dreams, she immediately prays in order to
prevent the happening of those predictions.
B. Repetitive
recollection of one’s dream
Recalling dreams is one of the challenges of human
beings. According to a study, five minutes
after waking up, an average person can only remember half of the content of a dream and after ten minutes,
90% is lost. But there are others who are capable enough to recall their dreams
while doing their daily routines. These people have been undoubtedly influenced
by their dreams. Since dreams seem to come out of the surface of the
unconscious, these are being manifested in a person's realities. If one is able
to see resemblances of a particular real-life scenario to his dreams and the
result was unfavorable, then, most likely, he will evade that particular
situation in his own ways. Those people who are able to make histories in the
scientific community and in their own careers have been practicing the
recollection of dreams. Because of this, they were able to apply what those
dreams tell them, thus, histories happened.
C. Formulation of
dream-based rationalizations
Ambivalent individuals who are open
to numerous possibilities are the most common targets of dreams. Since they
have the capability to put significance in their dreams, they can formulate
some rationalizations based on their dreams. Skepticism is a strange word to
them. After seeing the results of these rationalizations in his own life, he
may either submit his own intellect to those dream-based directions or
disregard the solutions being bestowed by his dreams. If one was able to
interpret or understand his own dreams regarding the things that they wanted to
expose to him, the results will probably become fulfilling. Also, some people
are fond of meditating their dreams and even write their own dreams especially
if they signify warnings about future events or solutions to the problems.
D. Change in
personality
Individuals who suffered from Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder have dreams that repeatedly replaying the circumstance that induced
the traumatic feeling to the patient. These people have some emotional
disturbances inside them, even even in the waking state, and hence
affecting the way they deal with people.
Their patience shortens, their view towards their surroundings becomes
negative, and, consequently, their decisions manifest their negativity.
“Just say to oneself: ‘I want to dream about X tonight’
as you're drifting off to sleep. And in my research, I find that about 50% of
people can do that if they just practice that for a brief period of time, and
about half will get an answer that is really gratifying to whatever the issue
is.”
-
Professor Deidre Barrett (Harvard Medical School)
In the above quotation, Professor Barrett
stated that each person can become a genius and may take part in the world’s
history by commanding himself to dream about a particular solution. Professor Barrett also stated that asking
dreams for a solution needs to be practiced. The solution doesn’t easily come
by a single snap, it has to be meditated. Professor Barrett said that half of
the world’s population can do that, and that estimate gives a very good chance
to every person. Still, regardless of the time it takes to master the
maneuvering of dreams, it cannot outweigh the satisfaction that one can achieve
in receiving the answer. Although
there is still no direct explanation on how the dreamer can force his dreams to
provide him the solution that he needs, still, knowing in the first place that
dreams can heal and teach is a good start, a good stepping stone towards future
discoveries.
