Seasons

And here I was thinking that in america community college was where you went when you weren't rich... silly me.

That, too, Greylin, or if you want to get a two-year degree or certificate of some kind. At least that's how it was where I went.

I'm not rich. I relied heavily on need-based financial aid....and student loans.

I agree w/ you Irina that dream interpetation should be done in an object to metaphor-of-self-aspect relationship- but I also think that these metaphors are entirely personal. EX: someone who grew up next to the ocean will have a set of metaphors for it that are vastly different than someone who grew up in Kansas. This applies to the micro details as well. Due to this in order to get reeally valuable interpetations one REALLY must know ones self.

karmapd: drawing a distinction between dirty and sensual is really subjective though. Perfect EX: I dont like porn, but I wouldnt consider Playboy to be porn, Id call that nude photography. I suppose the line is drawn depending on your exposure.

I dream of people I love but somehow have lost contact with quite often. When I think about it, it's always about people I didn't have the chance to stay in touch with, so they're kind of 'stolen' from me in one way or another. Those dreams always leave me feeling very sad and almost heart-broken when I wake up.

I think it's pretty easy to understand the 'meaning' of those dreams.

Sure, many dreams will have a thrust that is fairly obvious, but by understanding the metaphors of the minutia you could probably zero in on very specific instances in your past that made you feel this way- perhaps even in lights that you had never realized consciously before

I sometimes wonder if we don't easily over-analyze our dreams. Dreams is, mostly, your brain's way of processing and analyzing information. Maybe it's better if we look at them as some kind of (vital) nightly entertainment to make sleep less boring

There is a theory that as protoprimates we didnt sleep but merely went inactive for a bit. As our eyes developed and also lost a bit of night vision ability it became wise to remain perfectly still throughout the night. Meaning: those that could become so engrossed in their thoughts that they did so lived and those that stumbled around or bolted blindly at the sound of a predator died. Jump forward a 10 or 20 million years and lo we have sleep and dreams.

I dont completely buy it- but its a thoery.

It's a nice theory But when did snoring and talking in your sleep start?

Most of the stuff I've read suggests that dreams are a by-product of the mind sorting through the day's memories. That's not to say that they have no other meaning, but I find that stuff I've seen during the day often works its way into my dreams.

I kind of agree with both Ulrike and Irina. I think dreams do contain messages from our subconscious (maybe even our unconscious minds too, although I am by no means a diehard Freudian!) outlining our anxieties and insecurities, but I think experiences from the day creep in there too and mix things up. If dreams are the body's way of reshuffling memories then it makes sense there would be a mixture of conscious and subconscious thoughts. People often say, "Oh, but I dreamt about someone I haven't seen or thought about in years," but you don't know that the day before you went shopping and on the radio in the store, they were playing a song you once danced to together at the school disco, and you thought you'd forgotten about it but your mind is taking notes all the time.
One thing I cannot explain, however, is a recurring dream I had for about six weeks last year. It was a short conversation with my Music teacher. But over those six weeks and for a few weeks afterwards, my teacher kept saying things in real life that he'd said in my dream. I'd put it down to the fact that I know him very well and could possibly predict the kind of things he'd say, but the scary thing was that he actually said each part in order over that stretch of time. Weird.

A scientist once told me that there are no such things as recurring dreams and that it's only our mind playing tricks on us. He said that you might think you're having a recurring dream, but as a matter of fact, you don't. I don't believe him, though.

Are you sure the conversation with your teacher wasn't just Deja vu?

Which brings me to that subject: Has anyone ever heard a (more or less) scientific explanation of what Dejavu actually is? I'm so curious.