A while back, I discussed a book on dreams, “What Your Dreams Can Tell You”, by Alex Lukeman. One of the blogs on the Barnes and Noble website recently had an interesting post: Why Do We Dream? Five Modern Theories. Read the post for details – but basically, the five theories are that dreams:
rehearses behaviors of self-defense (most dreams are crisis-related, such as forgetting a test or being naked in public)
creates wisdom
helps our brains forget what is no longer useful to it
are like psychotherapy
have no meaning (just random thoughts)
Lately, I’ve been dreaming about observing (not involved in!) Volkswagen bugs in various accidents. One time it was a bug overturned at the side of the road. More recently, a quite gory dream where a semi-truck hits one. I’ve never owned a VW, so I don’t know why that particular car model. I’m not sure if, or how, any of these five theories would fit, unless it’s the first one (self-defense), and is a warning for me to drive more carefully (I’m already a very careful driver).
This blog post also mentions a couple classic texts on dreams: “The Red Book” by Jung, and “Interpretations of Dreams” by Freud. It probably would be interesting to look through them for historical context of the theory of dreams, but I’m not sure that I’d take Jung’s or Freud’s theories too seriously. Additionally, I wonder if the text of either book would be dry reading? Opinions?
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I looked up dream interpretation in Google, and cars, and kept getting that dreams involving cars indicate something about the path or direction your life is going. Of course, since you are dreaming about a VW bug, maybe it means you recently read Kafka, and are afraid you are turning into a bug! :–)
Actually, whenever I dream about something weird, if I struggle long enough, I can sometimes come up with a stray reference or sighting that hung around in my subconscious and contributed to the later appearance in the dream.
rhapsodyinbooks´s last blog ..Review of “One Corpse Too Many” by Ellis Peters
Twitter: ValerieAndBooks
says:
Thinking about the car dreams (I also have ones where I forget to turn on the headlights at night time, or am hopelessly lost) does make me wonder about the direction of where my life is going. I don’t know if I should feel depressed or enlightened, LOL!
Valerie´s last blog ..Pondering Dreams
I don’t know. I have ridiculously vivid dreams, 70% of which are nightmares, pretty much every night. I can’t imagine trying to analyse them all! lol
Eva´s last blog ..Sunday Salon: the Snowglobe Post
As you may have read from my blog entries, I’ve been really into interpreting my dreams lately too. What do your books say about teeth crumbling dreams or dreams where you’re searching for someone? Strange about your VW dreams.
Twitter: ValerieAndBooks
says:
Eva, I guess if you have so many vivid dreams, it definitely would be too time-consuming to try to analyze every one
!
Danise, my book isn’t a “dream dictionary” , but rather, has the approach of how to interpret dreams based on the dreamer’s past experiences and mind-set. You can take a look at it when you are here next week!
Valerie´s last blog ..The Classics Circuit: Two Books by Wilkie Collins