# Are dreams important?



## Juri

It's curious how older people in Malta still use as mornig-greeting"bon jour".It's the only remnant of the short Napoleon's domination.
But it's many more curious how members of a tribe living in Mexico ask each other early in the morning: "What did you dream this night?" because a habit coming from their animistic culture. 
Greeks and Romans attributed as much importance to dreams, 
today in Europe many persons are still interested to them, hoping wether 
in a bond with dead relatives, or simply to get good lottery numbers.
And dream interpretation is still strong point of psycho-analysis.

What importance do we ascribe today to the dreams?


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## Tsoman

I really enjoy my dreams most of the time, but I don't think that they mean anything. Sometimes they reflect real life stuff that happens to me (like if I spend some time with someone, that person may be in my dream later that night; or if I have been fishing a lot, I may have a dream with a fishing theme).

I'm not too emotionally deep, so I can't speak for others who may have more significant dreams.


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## Juri

Many persons think they have not significant dreams, but the reason is that awaking they forget the most dreams of the night.
But I normally don't forget if I have been in company with a dead person, then, during the day, an alive person comes.


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## danielfranco

Supposedly, the dream-state your body forces upon you during the REM sleep phase is absolutely necessary to "download" all the short-term memory registers into the long-term memory registers of the brain. Because this is a physical process that very roughly equals the freeing of a massive amount of RAM on your computer, the effects are not only physically refreshing, but in fact help the body to better balance many of the hormones that affect mood directly, and "resets" the chemical balance necessary for good nerve electrochemical impulses.
So, yeah, dreams are very important for your physical and mental health.
Sleep depravation experiments have shown that people who are interrupted often during REM sleep develop ailments and slight dementia.
Nothing a good-night's rest cannot cure, though!


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## .   1

I'll take a little from column A and a little from column B.
I believe that my mind needs the downtime during sleep to perform self testing and self cleaning processes.
I also believe that sleep is the true trance and it is at this time that we are able to access our ancestors.
I able to remember random snippits of things said and things done under specific circumstances or in general practice. If I have a problem to solve my mind seems to be able to use sleep to swerve to the type of memories that are beneficial for me at that time. When I write a poem the perfect phrase will often pop into my mind at the moment of waking from a dream.
Newton is said to have often been observed to be sitting frozen on his bed for a number of hours simply thinking about the ideas that came to him in his dreams.
My father is long dead and is not really available to me unless in a dream. I am aware that it is not really him and that he is no more than a simulacrum of my collective memories of him and it does not matter. The contact is comforting and informative.
Dreams let me think honestly.

.,,


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## Juri

Solving problems sleeping is very interesting too.

When translating until late in the night, I meet the obstacle of a word
I can't remember, I don't google it, but switch off the PC and go to bed.
In the morning the missing word is always ready.

The benefit of course derives non only from "sleeping", but primarily
from the state of unconsciousness which unburdens the brains.


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## stephyjh

Another for the "little of both" category. I need my sleep to recharge, of course, like anyone else. But every so often I'll see something in a dream, long sequences, exact dialogue, and then sometime in the next few days it will happen. So I couldn't write off the possibility that there's someone communicating with me that way.


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## hohodicestu

Hi,

I'm not sure how true the following statement is; but people say that if you dream while sleeping, you're not really relaxing your mind or resting. In other words, dreaming is not good for our body and it's considered not necessary. That's what I was told.


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## Juri

I found some affirmations about dreams, they disagree with the ones our mexican friend have been told.
The dreams are the watchman of sleeping and don't disturb it, because they transform external stimulus in a dream component.
The meaning of dreams is mostly a try to fulfill  unconscious desires.


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## Kräuter_Fee

Some dreams do have a meaning, there are people who can predict that a relative is going to die... 

Fortunately I don't have such dreams, mine are usually nice. In my case they only reflect the things I've done during the day or those things that worry me.


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## Juri

Kräuter_Fee said:


> Some dreams do have a meaning, there are people who *can predict* that a relative is going to die...


 
Quite right, I've discussed with many people with such premonition dreams,in spite of their non willing to speak about, for not to be considered  a jinx.
It seems to have dealings  with extreme unconscious telepathyc transference from the brain, especially of relatives in a critical moment.


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## Sallyb36

I very rarely remember my dreams.  When I do they seem to be about things that have been worrying me in my concious state.


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## Kräuter_Fee

Juri said:


> Quite right, I've discussed with many people with such premonition dreams,in spite of their non willing to speak about, for not to be considered  a jinx.
> It seems to have dealings  with extreme unconscious telepathyc transference from the brain, especially of relatives in a critical moment.



My mom has such dreams, she can predict earthquakes too  one morning I woke up and I told her... "I had a really weird dream, I dreamt the Moon fell down". She said "Mine was worse, I dreamt of an earthquake". After that I went to school and told my best friend "my mom told me she had dreamt of an earthquake". At 11.10am we had our break. As I was leaving the classroom, desks started to shake. It was a 4.6 earthquake. My friend totally freaked out...


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## french4beth

I feel that dreams are a means of processing our daily experiences. It could be an interpretation of something that happened, a means to access information that we are experiencing a block on, or self-advice as to what we should do in a particular situation, what a possible outcome of a particular action will be.

People that are sleep deprived and that cannot dream go insane.  We need the downtime to figure out what's going on in our daily lives, what has already happened to us, and what the future may hold.  Since it is a purely mental exercise, it's almost an out-of-body experience (when I was younger, I had a dream that I still vividly remember that turned out to be about astral projection).

Since it is a purely spiritual act, I believe that it is possible to interact with people that are no longer in this realm.

And just because you don't remember your dreams, doesn't mean that you don't have any - it just means that you don't remember them!  The easiest way to remember your dreams is to wake up naturally (no radios or alarms), and keep a notebook by your bed & immediately jot down everything as soon as you wake up.  Also, some people think that they dream just prior to waking up - from what I've read, I think that dreams occur in the middle of the sleep cycle, and our minds do a sort of "instant replay" at the end of the sleep cycle.


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## maxiogee

Kräuter_Fee said:


> My mom has such dreams, she can predict earthquakes too  one morning I woke up and I told her... "I had a really weird dream, I dreamt the Moon fell down". She said "Mine was worse, I dreamt of an earthquake". After that I went to school and told my best friend "my mom told me she had dreamt of an earthquake". At 11.10am we had our break. As I was leaving the classroom, desks started to shake. It was a 4.6 earthquake. My friend totally freaked out...



I wonder if what your mother experiences are _really_ dreams - in the sense that you dreamt the moon fell. 
Many animals are known to 'predict' earthquakes by sensing the pre-quake tremors. They have been known to do this several hours prior to a quake affecting where they reside.
I would hazard a guess that this is what your mother is experiencing and her mind is interpreting it as a dream.


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## luis masci

stephyjh said:


> But every so often I'll see something in a dream, long sequences, exact dialogue, and then sometime in the next few days it will happen.


The same occurred to me several times. 
Plus, I used to write a personal diary; years later I came across with it and read about a dream I wrote there which I had forgotten at all. In it I was describing a dream where I had seen a green color eyes with some brown points and I wrote there I had been impressed due to this dream was uncommon lively. 
I was shocked because the eyes of my wife are exactly like it was described there. 

-------------------------------------------------------------
Corrections will be always welcome


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## Kräuter_Fee

maxiogee said:


> I would hazard a guess that this is what your mother is experiencing and her mind is interpreting it as a dream.


That's true... it could be, I told her that too... I think she has some sort of 6th sense, which I don't have at all (and I'm thankful for that ).


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## Montgomery

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this forum.
I think that yes, dreams are important. They're part of us.
For example, for my mom dreams are indeed reflection of the past or future. Usually she admits that her dreams (if she remembers them) are composed of something that happened to her the day before she had a particular dream, something, someone she saw or was thinking of. If she sees some dead relatives, for example my grandparents, she seams not to care but I notice that she's anxious. But when she sees WATER or BABIES she freaks out and is very carefull about everything all day. 
According to most dream books these two aspects are quite common to appear in our dreams and they're very negative. What's worse, that usually comes true. For example, every time a baby appears in my mom's, my dad's dream or mine, one of us gets cold or sick, and usually it's me.  Sometime other kinds of problems happen, for example something gets broken at home. It takes a day or two but it happens and my mom says "told you so!".
I personally don't really believe it, for me it's a matter of coincidence or negative energy, but I don't deny my mom's beliefs. Better not...


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## french4beth

Kräuter_Fee said:


> That's true... it could be, I told her that too... I think she has some sort of 6th sense, which I don't have at all (and I'm thankful for that ).


Sorry, I think that _you_ have "it" too - after all, you dreamt about the moon falling down!


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## Mei

Hi all there,

I've heard that if you eat a lot of olives you will dream that night... in fact I did it and it worked... coincidence? I don't know. 

I love it when dreaming I can do whatever I want, I mean, when it seems that you notice you're dreaming and everything you want in that moment happens. This doesn't happen to me very often but I enjoy it! 

Hmm... there is something that happen to me so strange... it happen when I'm in that phase that you are sleeping but it seems you are not... I feel a pressure in all the body and I can not move or awake and it seems I will explode... not a joke... it's so distressing. Does anybody know something about it? 

Cheers!!

Mei


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## french4beth

swift_precision said:


> Does dreaming about naked women performing all sorts of lewd acts count as having a 6th sense?


No, a sexth sense  

There's something called "sleep paralysis" that describes what happens when you're partially awake, but feel as though you can't move (article here) - basically, your body is preventing you from hurting yourself if you've just had a very vivid dream. The article suggests that 'sleep paralysis' can be caused by stress, and that many people who experience it sleep on their backs (so sleep on your side to help _prevent_ it).

Very interesting article here on dreams & sleep & why we don't remember dreams:



> An event with a strong emotional component is more likely to be remembered than one with no emotional component because emotional memories are recorded in one part of the brain while visual components are recorded in another... We are likely to remember dreams if we wake shortly after they occur. Even so, if we do not encode the dream by making some effort to remember it, we are likely to forget it.


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## Juri

Mei said:


> Hi all there,
> 
> Hmm... there is something that happen to me so strange... it happen when I'm in that phase that you are sleeping but it seems you are not... I feel a pressure in all the body and I can not move or awake and it seems I will explode... not a joke... it's so distressing. Does anybody know something about it?
> 
> Mei


In such circumstances my parents spoke, guilt was a goblin, a sprite, named in Venetian dialect "cinciùt".
When I was young I dreamed for decads how I pushed myself through a narrow tunnel.Somebody explained that it reminds the stress of birth.

But now, elder, between 5 and 7 in the mornig, I often dream and have the precise sensation of  pains in arms,legs or joints. Awaking, no one is there more .


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## Mei

french4beth said:


> There's something called "sleep paralysis" that describes what happens when you're partially awake, but feel as though you can't move (article here) - basically, your body is preventing you from hurting yourself if you've just had a very vivid dream. The article suggests that 'sleep paralysis' can be caused by stress, and that many people who experience it sleep on their backs (so sleep on your side to help _prevent_ it).



Yes, I discover that sleeping on my side it doesn't bothers so much and I can sleep. I once could started it by myself, I thought I could control it... but I was mistaking.  I can't control it.

Preventing me from hurting myself? Caused by stress? I'm so far from this!  

Thank you for the article, I talked about it with many people and most of them told me that it could be some kind of out-of-body-experience but I'm sooo glad it's not this... phew!

Cheers

Mei


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## maxwels

Dreams and Visions carry utmost importance to convey or if required to interpret God' s message to people.People today grumble of different weird dreams haunting them followed by fear and panic.It usually stems from the thoughts you accumulate before retiring to bed.But God driven dreams are quite inspiring and it endows you to feel the closeness you might probably have never deemed imaginable.So keeping an ultimate watch over our thoughts is imperative in the very essence of pursuing a Godly dream.  
Cease not to pray to eliminate the clutters out of mind causing all such nightmares and ghost appearences and suffer to pay undue attention to be clothed in the very robe of righteousness pleasing our Creator.


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## danielfranco

maxwels said:


> Cease not to pray to eliminate the clutters out of mind causing all such nightmares and ghost appearences and suffer to pay undue attention to be clothed in the very robe of righteousness pleasing our Creator.



Well, that would be quite alright, I guess, if "dreaming" was an activity that depended on one's volition. But it's as involuntary as, let's say, erm, hmm, peristalsis, so that I think getting "in line" with God's will might be useful for one's peace of mind, but dreams' content or plot come and go without having much to do with the real world.
That is, unless one wishes to make them significant.


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## Montgomery

All right,
now how about this one - a lot of people I know believe that if they dream about important events, such as exams for example, they come true in a reverse way. If you're a student, it's normal that before exams you dream about them. We've spoken many times about that with my friends. When we had dreams about failing exams, we used to pass them , and when about passing, we used to fail. 
How does it work?


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## Mei

Mei said:


> Thank you for the article, I talked about it with many people and most of them told me that it could be some kind of out-of-body-experience but I'm sooo glad it's not this... phew!
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Mei



Well... I could read the article and it talks about out-body-experiences... I don't like this... 

Mei


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## ameana7

Montgomery said:


> For example, for my mom dreams are indeed reflection of the past or future. Usually she admits that her dreams (if she remembers them) are composed of something that happened to her the day before she had a particular dream, something, someone she saw or was thinking of. If she sees some dead relatives, for example my grandparents, she seams not to care but I notice that she's anxious. But when she sees WATER or BABIES she freaks out and is very carefull about everything all day.



It is really interesting because in my family, it is believed that if someone sees a person dead in his/her dream, the life of the person will be longer and also believed that seeing water in dreams means contentment. If someone sees a baby boy, it means something she/he wants much will become true. Snakes and mice mean enemies or seeing a wedding dress or a bride means that something bad will occur! But i see that all of the beliefs or meanings of dreams can change depending on where you live. It is interesting.


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## Mei

ameana7 said:


> It is really interesting because in my family, it is believed that if someone sees a person dead in his/her dream, the life of the person will be longer and also believed that seeing water in dreams means contentment. If someone sees a baby boy, it means something she/he wants much will become true. Snakes and mice mean enemies or seeing a wedding dress or a bride means that something bad will occur! But i see that all of the beliefs or meanings of dreams can change depending on where you live. It is interesting.



 Yes, it is interesting and a little confuse, right? I don't know who's right and I don't want to be mislead... aaaayyy.... same old story... 

Mei


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## Mei

french4beth said:


> No, a sexth sense
> 
> There's something called "sleep paralysis" that describes what happens when you're partially awake, but feel as though you can't move (article here) - basically, your body is preventing you from hurting yourself if you've just had a very vivid dream. The article suggests that 'sleep paralysis' can be caused by stress, and that many people who experience it sleep on their backs (so sleep on your side to help _prevent_ it).



Hi again,

I looked for information about this "sleep paralysis" and I couldn't find what is it caused by... I would like to know it... 

Mei


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## .   1

Mei said:


> Hi again,
> 
> I looked for information about this "sleep paralysis" and I couldn't find what is it caused by... I would like to know it...
> 
> Mei


I think that it is a bit unfair to call it sleep paralysis.

I suspect that what you have described is a waking dream.  You are not fully awake and you are not fully asleep and you are simply floating between the two states.  There is no paralysis and the moment that you are startled or if someone or something is actually there you will wake instantly and be able to move quite well.

There is nothing to be concerned about at all.  Most people experience this but do not remember it when they wake completely.

Enjoy your dreams.

.,,


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## Mei

. said:


> I think that it is a bit unfair to call it sleep paralysis.
> 
> I suspect that what you have described is a waking dream.  You are not fully awake and you are not fully asleep and you are simply floating between the two states.  There is no paralysis and the moment that you are startled or if someone or something is actually there you will wake instantly and be able to move quite well.
> 
> There is nothing to be concerned about at all.  Most people experience this but do not remember it when they wake completely.
> 
> Enjoy your dreams.
> 
> .,,



he he .,,

Believe me when I say that I do remember it because it's horrible, I can't move, I can't breath and it seems I will explode, I hope anybody experience this but I bet you would remember it... aaaiiixxx... 

This happen to me since I was 17 yo, so I have "experience" but I don't know its causes, that is what I want to know. 



> Enjoy your dreams.


Thank you, 

I'll keep on searching! 

Cheers 

Mei


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## Juri

[B said:
			
		

> ameana7[/B];1398423]...*the life of the person will be longer* and also believed that seeing water in dreams means contentment. ...
> But i see that all of the beliefs or meanings of dreams can change depending on where you live. It is interesting.


 
 Really interesting. "Dreaming of a person means prolonging his life"
In our region it's firmly believed.
Is it so in other Italian regions? If not, I could think that as other many superstitious(or not?) beliefs, this also has been brought in the free
Trieste harbour, in Austrian age, by the many Greeks, Turks,Armenians, who formed at that time a colourful crowd of little and bigger dealers.


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## JLanguage

. said:


> I think that it is a bit unfair to call it sleep paralysis.
> 
> I suspect that what you have described is a waking dream. You are not fully awake and you are not fully asleep and you are simply floating between the two states. There is no paralysis and the moment that you are startled or if someone or something is actually there you will wake instantly and be able to move quite well.
> 
> There is nothing to be concerned about at all. Most people experience this but do not remember it when they wake completely.
> 
> Enjoy your dreams.
> 
> .,,


 
During REM sleep the body is paralyzed to prevent us from acting out our dreams. Sometimes it happens that you remain paralyzed after you wake up or enter sleep paralysis while you are still falling asleep, which is what Mei is experiencing.


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## coconutpalm

As in Juri's country, dreams were important means of psycho-analysis. And it is for many people, especially when they're nightmares. People are scared, and turn to the old Taoistic ways to find an "answer".
I seldom dream. I guess that means that I'm in good health. Yet, I really love dreaming, because I have never had nightmares. I don't have colorful dreams as my eldest sister do, but they are still fascinating. After all, dreams are not that important to myself or my family.


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## Span_glish

Kräuter_Fee said:


> My mom has such dreams, she can predict earthquakes too  ...


 
The Mayans, probably as many other cultures, used dreams to predict the future, weather, etc.  It was believed that the reason why some people had the extraordinar gift to interpret dreams was because they had a special connection with their Gods.  

I don't know about dreaming, but I surely enjoy my beauty sleep


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## HistofEng

Everyone is temporarily paralyzed during *REM* sleep!!


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## lupita_riofrio

maxiogee said:


> I wonder if what your mother experiences are _really_ dreams - in the sense that you dreamt the moon fell.
> Many animals are known to 'predict' earthquakes by sensing the pre-quake tremors. They have been known to do this several hours prior to a quake affecting where they reside.
> I would hazard a guess that this is what your mother is experiencing and her mind is interpreting it as a dream.


 
Yes Maxi, I agree 100% ! Actually,in the Thaï Tsunami no animals were killed, and the natives, who are much more in contact with Nature, didn't die either because they felt something was going wrong... so they had the time to move up to the mountains. 
Maybe not all of us have lost this contact with Nature, even living in small boxes (= flats) surrounded by ring roads....


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## .   1

maxiogee said:


> I wonder if what your mother experiences are _really_ dreams - in the sense that you dreamt the moon fell.
> Many animals are known to 'predict' earthquakes by sensing the pre-quake tremors. They have been known to do this several hours prior to a quake affecting where they reside.
> I would hazard a guess that this is what your mother is experiencing and her mind is interpreting it as a dream.


Dreams can be seen as our mind's opportunity to examine and clear confusing thoughts and experiences.
I clearly remember waking early one morning dreaming of a freight train roaring up the vally I was living in.  This turned out to be a minor earthquake.
It is entirely possible that extremely minor tremors precede full on quakes and when these minor tremors occur during dreams we might have violent or scary dreams giving us the hint to move away from that area for a while until the trouble is over.
Humanity has heavily populated seismically unstable areas due to the high fertility of the earth around these places and it seems entirely reasonable that we have developed some form of intuitive early warning system.

Other weather changes may have tiny warning things that we perceive even though we do not realise that we perceive so our dreams speak to us.

.,,


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## Mei

Juri said:


> Really interesting. "Dreaming of a person means prolonging his life"



Hi,

I heard this too.

Mei


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## )o(Akasha)o(

I like dreamings. My dreams tend to be like action movies where I am the main character. And yes, when I wake up I usually ask my boyfriend if he had a dream last night. Dreams are important, at least to me


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