Morpheus and Me

It’s hot outside and I’m on the move a lot recently, and so my sleep pattern is getting progressively more erratic. The only positive aspect of this revoltin’ development is that I’m dreaming again.

Everybody dreams, all the time. Whether you remember them or not depends on a list of factors, but when I’m sleeping well I tend to sleep relatively peacefully. I awake with no recollection of any nocturnal meanderings, and any fading memories are gone by the time I stagger to the bathroom. I suspect that I’m normally too knackered to waste precious REM time, but that’s hardly a scientific analysis.

I don’t really dream very much, at least, not that I remember. And when I do dream the images are often spectacular in their mundanity. I tend to dream about riding the bus, or doing my laundry. Sometimes if I have a big day ahead of me I dream that I’m experiencing that day, but none of the specific events are ever filled in. Basically, I dream in smalltalk.

Until my sleep pattern falls apart, and then I start to dream with greater vividness. Partly this has to do with falling asleep in the middle of the afternoon: it is a noted phenomenon that falling asleep in the middle of the day when the brain is still relatively active results in stranger, more vivid dreams. If I need to get up early but have only managed to snatch an hour or two’s rest I’ll often go back to bed after the morning’s task is done, and it is the sleep around brunchtime that evokes the most bizarre imagery.

Normally this is quite amusing. Dreams notable for their strangeness are sometimes inspiring, occasionally unsettling, but always worth remembering for one reason or another. If nothing else it gives me the opportunity for a spot of navel-gazing in regards to my own unconscious and its workings: all these images come from my own mind, so what on earth do they mean, and what on earth put them there?

My man Sigmund had a similar line of thought, obviously, and he spent a lot more time on his analysis than I ever will on mine. Most people are familiar with Freud’s assertion that what we remember from our dreams is not necessarily what our unconscious is trying to express (the most famous and oft-quoted examples is “when you dream about flying you’re really dreaming about having sex”). In other words, it is the latent content of the dream that is of most significance. Freud alleged that it is pointless to attempt to construct a coherent narrative from the actual dream itself: you’re missing the point if you concentrate on the pictures rather than what they mean.

Freud’s work attracted much criticism due to his perceived obsession with sexual issues (I say perceived because while it’s certainly a much played out theme in his work, and is certainly a dead-end in many cases, he’s not nearly the sexually-motivated nutcase I believed him to be when I started reading his work). His explanation for the existence of dreams themselves was also labelled simplistic, although it’s easy to aim that barb at the first pioneer in any field.

In any case, modern psychoanalysis has moved back towards exploring the ‘real’ content of the dream as most significant. Freud’s work is by no means forgotten however, and in fact it seems as though one of his main areas of interest has survived.

As well as wanting to know what we were really dreaming about, Freud always wanted to know why. If you’re dreaming about flying, and you’re actually dreaming about sex, what links those two concepts together in your head? What factors in your psyche cause you to express things in a certain way?

A lot of my dreams are relatively easy to interpret. I occasionally dream about a particular person who is no longer in my life, and whose presence I sometimes miss: it’s easy to see what that might mean. I sometimes dream of particular events, past and future, that have had a major effect on me: again I can draw the lines myself.

But what about those occasional blistering nightmares? What about the odd sex dreams that have no apparent link with my own romantic or sexual leanings? What about the dream I had last week, where I was spying on my neighbours through a ridiculous steam-punk telescope, only to discover they had knocked through all the separating walls in the apartment building and were now all living in various kinds of tent? What in the upside-down Sam Hill does that mean?

I haven’t a clue, obviously, but it’s rather fun trying to guess. The chances of hitting on some glittering psychological insight are pretty small, but it’s enough to raise a smile. If your dreams are weird enough, people are always interested, and in my experience relish the chance to interpret someone else’s dreams for them, regardless of their opinion on Freud.

I had a very inspiring professor once, who made a comment on psychoanalysis and its place in modern society that has always stuck with me. She said that the best thing Freud had done for the modern individual was point out to us that “our dreams were important enough to be studied like literature.” It’s a nice sentiment, and one easily applied. If you’re going to think about who you are, and why you feel the way you do, then your dreams are an amusing place to start.