Boy, have you guys never been in my head at night!
And man, I feel bad for those who are not getting anything more out of dreaming than ‘sorting daily experience’.
First, most dream books are indeed useless. Individual symbolism varies widely, and any ‘real’ dream analyst will tell you the same thing. People in the same culture may have overlaps in their symbolism, but the actual individual spin is yours alone. A good dream interpretation book should say that. You can’t cut and paste their symbols into your head, and sometimes a snake is just a snake.
Second, most dreams for most people are just as you all said – processing, filtering, sorting your life, experiences, and thoughts. But there are also more active processes, too – mostly related to continuing to explore things you are already exploring during the day, but sometimes to the obvious extreme (as with the engagement issue). You might explore an anticipated experience (such as the good trip to the dentist), or a crisis, or a question that has been bugging you, or a situation that has been bothering you. You can explore your emotions (anxiety dreams, nightmares, and fantasy dreams). And I’m positive that some of my dreams are just for kicks (I have great adventure dreams sometimes).
As for non-human animals dreaming, hello! Animals process emotion, have memory, change their behavior based on their expectations, and so forth. They are extracting meaning, even if on a rudimentary scale. Just because they can prove that rats dream about their mazes, doesn’t mean they don’t dream about anything else. It also says nothing for them having meaningful dreams or not.
So, let’s talk about MEANING. My dreams are regularly stuffed with it. And obviously, too, so I don’t miss the point. Say, when I was young and insecure, and was dating interracially partly because I didn’t want to be like everyone else. I wasn’t aware of my own motivations, but I got the following dream: Bunches of people all walking around with gorgeous gray horses. ONLY that color. I loved gray horses more than any other color, but I decide I am not going to be just like everyone else, so I pick out ‘a horse of a different color’ – a bay. Wake up, feel mortified, take stock, realize I do like the guy, but I should stop getting a kick out of dating him ‘because he’s different’ and focus on who he is instead. Meaningful, very useful, and often full of bad puns (my subconscious loves puns). Say, I’d dream about terriers when I was processing info about someone named Terry. Or dream about copper wire hanging in mid-air when my biggest problem was that I was not being ‘grounded’ (you know, copper wire, electricity?). Waters of the subconscious? Got ‘em! (rivers, lakes, stream, and oceans-full) If I let my life wander without direction, I dream I’m in my car, but in the passenger seat, car in motion, but nobody’s in the driver’s seat. If I’m working on some serious issue from my past, there’s construction in my back yard (and often repairing damage to the house foundation - details of those dreams regularly give me clues where to ‘dig’). If I miss the point of a conversation, all the lights in an empty house will go on in a dream (‘lights are on but nobody’s home’).
Much of this is just daily processing, but by looking at the symbols slung about everywhere, I can see what I’m processing below my conscious awareness, and that gives me more info to work with when I’m awake. I’ve saved friendships because of what I’ve found in my dreams, I’ve made leaps of understanding (about myself and other people and even school subjects), and I’ve changed my own attitudes. And I’ve saved tons on therapy, too. Not too shabby for just ‘meaningless’ processing. Intuitive processing (which is largely what I get ‘back’ from the dreams) is potent, fast, and often accurate, so why not use it? The puns make it hard for me to think that this isn’t intentionally meaningful stuff. Sure, you can get meaning out of a lot of things that weren’t intended to mean that (like some literature), but come on, some stuff is too damn obvious to NOT be intentional.
And I get precognitive dreams, too (I’ve even told people about the dream and had us BOTH experience the otherwise completely unexpected event later) – but they are generally about pointless stuff. I’ve never had any useful precognition. But I have had useful precognition help me - a friend (who lived hours away from me) dreamed that my son (while I was pregnant with him) was hungry, and wanted me to eat more protein. Three weeks later, my BP started to rise. My midwives checked my diet, and sure enough, even though I had actually increased my protein intake, I was still not eating enough protien. Once I ate enough of it, my BP stabilized. Useful. Oh, and she was right on his gender and eye color, too.
If you don’t get any value from their dreams other than entertainment, it seems like a waste of a valuable resource. But, then, maybe you all just don’t need as much help from your subconscious’ as I do…
