What Is A Dream?

The agility of our mind flashes innumerable varieties of thoughts and imaginations in the awakened state. Random
reflections of similar fluctuations continue in the subconscious state of sleep too and manifest their arbitrary mingling
in variegated expressions of dreams in general. Therefore dreams most often appear vague and meaningless….
Unfolding the secrets of this free entertainment has been the center of attraction of the inquisitive human mind since
the time of yore. Equally important has been the quest for identifying the nature, cause and mode of interpretation of
the rare but significant occurrence of meaningful dream….
Decipheration and analysis of dreams constituted an important part of transcendental knowledge in the ancient
times. Implications and messages conveyed by dreams were the subject matters of curiosity and concern for the
common people in the later ages too. The masters of this discipline of knowledge enjoyed high repute in the society.
An Italian scholar named Archaemidoras had written a book on dreams some time in the second century. The book
was entitled “Onirocritica” –– meaning, “Principles of Analyzing Dreams”. Copies of this hand written book were
in great demand those days. This was later published in the 15th century. Its popularity had risen further by then.
This book served as a fundamental document for many other volumes published on dreams and mental reflections in
the later years.
In the early days of modern civilization, people in some parts of the occidental world used to believe that during the
state of deep sleep the soul traverses in a ‘new’ world out of the body. The information gathered by it during this visit
of the extraterrestrial world is expressed via dreams. So strong was this conviction that waking up someone fast
asleep was regarded risky because of the apprehension that his soul may not have returned to his body before its
‘scheduled time’ and so waking him up during this period may amount to his untimely death….
Modern psychologists often analyze dreams in terms of mental and bodily conditions. For instance thrust during
sleep might be expressed as a dream associated with hunting for rivers or spring of water… If one feels suffocation
in a dream or feels as though someone is holding his throat tight and putting pressure on his chest…, then he (the
dreamer) is quite likely to suffer from cough, some lung infection or related disorder. Similar to these examples of
subconscious effects, the rise in the temperature of semen in a sleeping state often results in dreams pertaining to
sexual excitements and might lead to night discharge.
In a psychological experiment on dreams two persons were given pens in their hands while sleeping. One of them
dreamt of playing hockey and the other was rotating a club in his dream. When cotton piece was moved softly over
the palms of three sleeping subjects, one of them felt (in dream) as if he is holding the tail of a cat; another one dreamt of being massaged delicately; the third experienced a dream in which he was patting his daughter’s silky
hair. These examples illustrate the diversities of imaginations and almost instantaneous response to sentient
experiences of the subconscious mind.
Noted psychologist Sigmund Freud had collected authentic information of about 1900 dreams. He had presented the
study of the responsive reflections and psychological implications of these dreams in his popular book “Analysis of
Dreams”. He concluded that dreams are rhetoric expressions of the unfulfilled desires and suppressed emotions.
Ambitions, avarice, lust and worldly desires and expectations of the people have expanded many folds with materialistic
civilization, easy access to means of sensual pleasure and comforts coupled with a corresponding rise in aplomb and
ego.
The suppressed emotions, unfulfilled desires, eagerness of possession and ambitious race in personal and professional
life…., etc trigger a revolution in the conscious and unconscious domains of mind. Their reactions are expressed
and artificially ‘materialized’ in the imaginary world of dreams. Greater extent of these disturbances result in
disturbed sleep with haphazard flashes of vague dreams and may eventually lead to psychological disorders of
varied kinds. People having a balanced attitude of contentment and creativity and those who have emancipated their
thinking from the clutches of negative impulses of over-ambition, ego, jealously, etc usually get sound sleep and do
not experience vague or hazy dreams.
Dreams are termed as mirrors reflecting the basic nature and intrinsic tendencies of the individual self. The nature
of one’s dreams helps inferring his psychology to some extent. Especially, the roots of intensive influence of fear,
lust, ferociousness, aversion, etc, in one’s mind are easily diagnosed by decipheration of his dreams.
There is also a very distinct class of dreams which are hidden reflections of spiritually refined inner self and which
express subliminal communications at higher realms of cosmic force. Such dreams are often experienced in the
early hours of morning before dawn and are found to be precognitive, reflections of clairvoyance, or envoys of divine
messages….. Dreams leading to intuitive discoveries also fall in this category of the supernormal sensing of the
unconscious mind.
- Pt. Shriram Sharma Acharya