Brain scientists have discovered that during dreams, the brain is as electrically active as when we are awake. However, it is active in a chemically different way. Certain chemicals present during wakefulness are halved during dreamless sleep and completely absent during dream sleep. And so science explains that dreaming is just a byproduct of these chemical changes in the brain. This seems to tie in with the philosophical idea of ​​materialism that the world of physical matter is the only world that exists. This states that to understand anything, including subjective consciousness, we only need to see it in terms of physics and chemistry.

In contrast, Sigmund Freud believed that the content of the dream is significant. He thought that it covertly reveals something about our unconscious feelings and thoughts. For example, unrealistic or embarrassing worries and concerns, which we would prefer to avoid bringing to consciousness.

Many therapists today no longer trace all those hidden drives back to a sexual origin like Freud did. However, they see dreaming as the mind creating a dramatic representation of the dreamer’s life. Everything in the dream scene is a symbolic expression of something to do with the dreamer. They can be places, things or other figures. In other words, the dream is not just a hodgepodge of nonsense into which one could read almost anything. But rather something worthy of careful thought that potentially provides self-knowledge.

So is it true that dreams show the real me? Who I am?

Mind talk in waking life

Whether the contents of dreams are significant or not, it seems to be true that we have an enormous capacity in waking life for what has been called “mental chatter.” We only have to try starting a meditation program before we realize how difficult it can be to quiet the mind. It is because there is a constant stream of sensation, thought and feeling outside of conscious awareness; numerous half-born ideas, images, moods, memory fragments, etc.

symbolic disguise in dreams

Everyone can recognize that strange things happen in dreams. Emotions are powerful. The scenes can be threatening. People we meet can become judge or jury, our house can take on a dark basement that we weren’t previously aware of, our cat can start attacking us. If dreams represent inner concerns, why do familiar objects in dreams function as symbols of something else? Why can’t dreams be more direct?

Like Freud, I would suggest that the answer is that we have desires that would be unacceptable to our conscious minds and would meet with social approval if they ever came into public view in broad daylight. Elements of our inner life that we do not like to recognize ourselves and much less others. For example, I can get aggressive even if I don’t want to admit it. The apparent truth about me hurts. I want to be protected from that.

Self-identification with the contents of consciousness

Transpersonal psychologist Steve Taylor notes that in waking life most of the time we identify with our thoughts. It seems that we cannot easily part with them. We allow what we think to determine our mood and our sense of self-worth. I would say that also when we become aware of our fantasies, we also tend to identify with them.

Similarly, we tend to believe that the ideas and images we experience in our dreams are our own. Because this is what we believe, we are often ashamed of the images, actions, and feelings that we remember upon waking.

But what if they are not ours? What if they enter our heads from somewhere else? Perhaps our minds are simply acting as receivers. We would not blame a radio set for the material it broadcasts. Just the person who was transmitting. In other words, perhaps we are not what we think we are. We are not what we see in our mind’s eye. According to this point of view, it is definitely a mistake to equate our own character with what we dream of.

“You are not your thoughts. I know it sounds crazy, if you’re just hearing that for the first time…I mean your thoughts are in your head…they’re in your voice (usually)….nobody else can hear them…it’s pretty convincing to believe those thoughts are yours.” (Victoria Ward Harley Street Therapist and Trainer)

Rationality asleep in dreams

When we are dreaming, times, places and people change strangely without warning: strange incongruities and discontinuities are normal. Emotion is exaggerated, thinking is illogical and directionless, self-awareness is diminished. The sense of decision making and choice is greatly reduced.

Without rationality I cannot make informed decisions. It seems reasonable that I should not be blamed for something that was not rationally intended. And so, I conclude that I am not responsible for what I unintentionally dream.

our natural tendencies

If the dream is serving a useful function, it is certainly telling us something about our plight. What useless inclinations we can indulge in, what natural tendencies we should avoid, how we feel, what we need, what consequences of current attitudes might arise. All the possibilities that are in line with our inner life. But only possibilities. It’s not news. Not necessarily the real me.

Conclusion on dreams.

Just as we don’t have to identify with our thoughts, we don’t have to identify with our dreams either. But they can help us learn about life.

“That a person has no selfishness when the will is removed is evident from the dream. In the dream the voluntary part is absent, so that one has no control over any part individually, but the whole body lies at the command of involuntary impulses. For this reason, one then is not responsible for anything, for being asleep”. (Emmanuel Swedenborg)