The Interpretation of Dreams

Whether my dreams contain highly unusual or highly conventional content I usually tend to read quite a lot into them...this may have something to do with the fact that I studied Psychology and Sigmund Freud the forefather or Psychology believed that dreams were the "royal road to the unconscious".

Freud presented a topographical model of the mind; in which the mind is divided into 3 parts. The Conscious, this is the part of the mind that holds what you’re aware of. You can verbalise about your conscious experience and you can think about it in a logical fashion. The Preconscious, this is ordinary memory so although things stored here aren’t in the conscious, they can be readily brought into consciousness. Finally there is The Unconscious, Freud felt that this part of the mind was not directly accessible to awareness. In part, he saw it as a box for urges, feelings and ideas that are tied to anxiety, conflict and pain. These feelings and thoughts have not disappeared and according to Freud, they are there, exerting influence on our actions and our conscious awareness.

Freud's model of the mind has often been represented by an iceberg metaphor with the conscious being the tip of the iceberg the only part that it is visible whilst the majority of the iceberg lies beneath water and is unseen (the preconscious and unconscious).

I'm not saying that I believe everything Freud ever said (because believe me he had some quite far fetched ideas!), however I do believe he may have been onto something when he explained the link between our dreams and our unconscious feelings and desires. Many a time I have dreamt about something and only after having that dream have I realised there is someting I really want, really need to do or some unresolved issue I need to resolve. That's not to say I have to dream to think about certain aspects of my life logically but obviously our conscious thought is immensely influenced by social stipulations including moral and social norms so the mind is not as free to think about things as we would wish, sometimes we may push thoughts away as we feel that they would not be deemed to be socially acceptable. When we dream however, the mind is free from such stipulations and thoughts can flow in as they wish.

So...to conclude I don't let my dreams guide my life (i.e. if I dream about fish I don't automatically presume someone I know is pregnant lol) but I do believe that dreams contain more truth then some people would like to believe. After all even though you're asleep it's still your mind so everything you dream about is always there you're just not aware of it most of the time!!

What do you think? Is there some meaning within our dreams? Or are they just a load of random images and scenes our mind creates whilst we sleep?