Do your recurring dreams have any significance or are they just random REM nonsense?
What do dreams really mean?
I keep having this weird, recurring dream. In it, I haven't graduated from high school, but I deeply want to be out of school. The dream details change but the basic foundation remains in tact.
In my most recent dream I was in a class and the teacher was Alex Lifeson from the band Rush. He was lecturing about the technical orgins for his solo for the song Limelight. He even played an early sound clip but it was only a half dozen notes or so played repeatedly. As he was handing out a paper for the class to grade his teaching "performance", I woke up.
My normal routine would be to shuffle around in bed and then fall back to sleep and forget most the details of the dream, but this morning I decided to do something different. I got up and intended to track down what this dream might signify and perhaps what the dream analysts felt my subconscious was trying to tell me.
"Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious." - Sigmund Freud
Probably the most famous to analyze dreams through history has been Sigmund Freud: One of Freud's more important discoveries is that emotions buried in the unconscious surface in disguised form during dreaming, and that the remembered fragments of dreams can help uncover the buried feelings. Whether the mechanism is exactly as Freud describes it, many people have derived insights into themselves from studying their dreams, and most modern people consider dreams emotionally significant, unlike our ancestors who often saw them either as divine portents or as the bizarre side-effects of indigestion.
Indigestion? Yesterday, I wasn't feeling the best, so maybe there was a physiological reason for this weird dream.
Florence Cardinal wrote an article for Suite101 analyzing Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams breaking down Freud's four key dreamwork processes: displacement, condensation, symbolization and projection. Also, the secondary process known as secondary revision:Displacement: This is where the dreamer represses an urge, and then redirects that urge to another person or object.So what the hell was Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson, of recent notariety for a drunken incident, teaching a class about the origins of his Limelight guitar solo with me as one of his students?Condensation: This is the process whereby the dreamer disguises a particular urge, emotion or thought by condensing, or contracting, it into a brief dream imageI was in a garage band in the 80's and at one time I did want to be a rock and roll guitarist (my "urge"?), but I learned that the process of finding bandmates that cared about music more than getting high was a challenge. Also, I just didn't have enough time to practice while working two jobs. Being a good guitarist requires lots of practice and I just couldn't do it on a few hours sleep.Symbolization: This is where the repressed urge is played out in a symbolic act.I haven't had many music-oriented dreams, so I'm reaching on this one. Although, I do know that I do have some childhood regrets about leaving home at 15 to live on my own. What I don't understand is why I keep dreaming about an incident that did happen (graduation).Projection: This is the projection of the dreamer's repressed desire onto other people, but should not be confused with displacement as it does not involve objects.No objects per se in this dream, save for a chalkboard and desks to offer the surroundings of a classroom, but the inclusion of Alex Lifeson is a new one, because I don't recall ever dreaming about him before.Secondary revision: After the individual undergoes one or more of the other four dreamwork processes, they then undergo the secondary processes of the ego in which the more bizarre components of the dream are reorganized so the dream has a comprehensible surface meaning.I guess that is what I'm trying to do here and now, but I'm not having much luck, hence the reason I am sharing this here. Perhaps you, gentle readers and budding psychoanalysts, will be able to break this one down. Suite101 has a whole list of dream-related articles that might be of interest to learning the hidden meaning to your dreams.
I still don't have any idea what this recurring dream really means since I, in fact, graduated from high school in 1987, but I am fascinated by dreams and do wonder about what they are trying to say, if anything, about the past, present or future.
Are you fascinated by your dreams? Can you find any special meaning that makes sense? Or do you think dreams are just random REM nonsense composed of past experiences?…
Article comments
76 - cunfuzed
i had this crazy dream i was in a boat with my x-boyfriend and he sticks his hand in the water and pulls out eyes real eyes then kisses me weird huh?
77 - Do I?
I dreamt about a guy that I never saw in my life. By the of this dream we were going out. Wierd huh?
78 - Jessica
Hey i keep having this repeditive dream about my ex bf he was my first love and i dream about him everynite for the last 4months we havnt spoken for about 7months what does this mean?? i want these dreams to stop because every dream is about a memory ive had with him or about us getting bak 2getha please help i want to no what to do about it??
79 - Taylor
I'm scared of highways in general and I had a dream that I was riding in the car with my aunt and my aunt was driving. We had to give a baby to its grandmother after its mother left it-I say it because I'm not too sure whether its a boy or girl. When we first received the baby it was pretty, but it turned ugly after awhile. What does this mean?
80 - Alondra
I dream alot that my boyfriend leaves me and somehow I can't find him anywere I don't even remember his moms address or phone number and when I ask around about him nobody know anything what doe my dream mean?
81 - Rachael
I keep having a repetitive dream of me being pregnant ive had this dream 4 times now. I'm only 15 but what do you think this means?
82 - Kathy
I had this weird dream last night...it was night and in the sky there was this thing shooting out fire balls. Also I could see the star signs in stars and they would flash like lights and there was a word search and words would appear. I was with a friend I went to school with and we were scared and everyone was in the streets amazed and scared too as to what was going on. Also there were alot of monks in the street trying to console the people.
83 - TARA
I ALWAYS HAVE WIERD DREAMS, MY BOYFRIEND CLAIMS HE NEVER HAS THESE DREAMS UNTIL HE STAYS THE NIGHT AT MY HOUSE. FOR INSTANCE I HAD A DREAM MY GRANDFATHER TURNED INTO A TOMATO SLICE AND WAS DYING, THE TOMATO SLICE WAS ACTUALLY MOVING LIKE IT WAS BREATHING...WIERD HUH, BUT AT FIRST I COULD NOT FIND HIM (THE TOMATO SLICE) AMONGST A BUNCH OF NACHO CHEESE SAUCE. IN DREAMS IT ALL SEEMS LIKE IT COULD REALLY HAPPEN. WELL LAST NIGHT MY BOYFRIEND HAD A DREAM THAT HE WAS STEALING BANANAS AND STASHING THEM PLACES AND EATING THEM AS FAST AS HE COULD. HE THINKS IT WAS THE CINNAMON ROLL AND KOOLAID HE HAD BEFORE HE WENT TO BED. LOL
84 - no name
i had this super weird dream.. i mean seriously. Like i was seeing myself on the couch with my b/f sleeping ..just like we was when we went to sleep, it seemed soo real as if i was awake and really having this happen but i wasnt.. and this cat jumps on the end of the couch onto our feet ( it seems to be not really a cat..just looks like one.. but has the presents of something evil or bad)..well the cats pupils grow larger and larger and it has this posssed look on its face and i seem to get scared and the more scared i get its pupils grow even bigger and it then jumps toward me onto my face and has huge teeth and claws and i throw it on my b/f and it vanishes in the POOF ~ gone~and i wake up and we are laying exactly as we was in my dream that seemed so real. it was crazy.. and i seem freakishly scared ..like theres evil in the room? like a super scary movie. what the hell does this mean? i mean i NEVER even have dreams..well atleast i dont remmember them.. and this was so real.
85 - Kelly
In the day when I am awake I have these memorys of things that have never happened to me before. I think they are past dreams. I hate it. It's very scary. Anyone every have this happen to them?
86 - may
ikeep having dreams about soumsprt of which wicth was in the family and we all jnew her and if anyone she knew did somthing bad to her she would put a course on them ..its so scary ...then the last dram i had she put a curse on me ...
87 - may
ikeep having dreams about soumsprt of which wicth was in the family and we all jnew her and if anyone she knew did somthing bad to her she would put a course on them ..its so scary ...then the last dram i had she put a curse on me ...
88 - Lynn
I have this wierd dream too every so many months. I don't get it at all. Its about a volcano just appearing in the middle of my neighborhood or city. Usually I get enough warning to get all my family out of town but its always chaotic and seems to get worse before anyone even leaves. I never get all the way through it either. Sometimes it ends with me stuck in a car with my family and no way out. Others it ends with us just in the car getting away. Its always about me calling all my other siblings and mom to make sure they left before me too. What's behind this?
89 - majella
i have been having weird dreams for the past 8 months or more, i feel i have just drifted off in to a nice sleep, and all of a sudden i get a feeling someone is watching me, when these dreams first started the feeling someone was watching me from the landing, i leave my bedroom door ajar a little so i can hear my little girl if she needs me during the night for any reason, the feeling was so strong i got the house blessed by the preist, i started to feel a little more comfortable in going to sleep, and i had afew weeks of restful sleeping no weird dreams,BUT now its all started again but this time in my room, last night i had this dream where i felt there was someone watching me from every angle i turned in the bed to sleep, i know i was sleeping but it felt as if i was only drifting of too sleep, last night i seen a out line of a face just the face nothing else, i think i have had about 6 good hours sleep in as many weeks, im scared im very tired and i cant stop crying, please help me out in any way, im at the end of my rope.
90 - Clair x
I had this dream in where im at my house and i get a weird number ring my phone i hang it up then i get worried that ive hang it up!!
Then straight after my x texts me and then i feel as if im being watched and some one is trying to get me my mum is going to go out to walk my brother to the train staition and im sooo scared for her!!
I don't know what this means but it has happened twice in a row pretty much the same
Please can you help!!!!
91 - cori
I found this link, because I also have a recurring dream that I am back in high school and haven't graduated, and all of my friends have. I keep getting stuck going back even though I really have graduated. It's so stressful.
92 - Jenna
I always dream that my boyfriend has another girl pregnant. he has cheated on me an im not real sure if he still is or not. but in my dream it is always that girl he cheated with that is pregnant?what does this mean?
93 - breeze
this is retarded
94 - Keely Jean
I keep having a dream that , me and my two uncle are outside running at my old house . As we are going past each window it gets darker out . Right when we go past the last window it is completly dark out . But then the light to the back porch comes on , and 3 big mean dogs come running down the hill . My two uncles run in the door and lock it . Leaving me out there alone . I am begging for my life . They just stand there ; looking me in the eye , with a tear running down thier face . As i get eaten alive they watch it all . Then come outside and bring the dogs inside . While i take my last breathe , My mother comes up to me and says 'now ... your going to hell' .
Now im only 12 years old . and this scared me .
Can someone please tell me what it means ; or what they think it means .
Thanks - keely .