How, why, when, where?

Dreams: Dreams are the images, thoughts and feelings experienced while sleeping. The contents and biological purposes of dreams are not fully understood, though they have been a topic of speculation and interest throughout recorded history. The scientific study of dreams is known as oneirology.

I have decided to keep a blog as a 'dream diary'. I have very vivid dreams which, to me, appear to make no sense at all. Various people over the years have voiced their views on what exactly a dream is/means/represents:

Dreams allow the repressed parts of the mind to be satisfied through fantasy while keeping the conscious mind from thoughts that would suddenly cause one to awaken from shock.

• Freud suggested that bad dreams let the brain learn to gain control over emotions resulting from distressing experiences.


• Jung suggested that dreams may compensate for one-sided attitudes held in waking consciousness.
  Ferenczi proposed that the dream, when told, may communicate something that is not being said outright.


• Dreams are like the cleaning-up operations of computers when they are off-line, removing parasitic nodes and other "junk" from the mind during sleep.

Whilst I agree with the above statements to a certain extent, I also am left with slight confusion. Quite often my dreams are so bizarre I genuinely wonder if they completely contradict the above quotations.

Compared to friends, family and love ones I appear to dream a lot more frequently, which makes me wonder; do I have more on my mind than the people around me?; are they able to clear their minds before entering into a restful sleep, whilst I drag my worries with me into slumber?

More often than not I can remember the full dream and sometimes when I think back on one I relive the emotions I felt at the time and am shocked at quite how intense they can be.

Last night I had a nightmare; it was awful. I woke up in a real panic and it took me a moment to figure out in my own mind whether it was real or not. The most overwhelming sense of relief I ever feel, is the realisation that a nightmare is in fact not true; whether it be about the death of a loved one or being chased in the park. I still find it amazing the kind of effect a nightmare can have on me; I frequently awake from bad dreams sobbing. The worst dreams I ever have involve the death of a loved one; and although its only a dream I find it makes me face up to the fact: one it will be a reality; something I do not wish to think of yet. I have since, found out the interpretation of a dream about death, it is quite amazing how different the meaning is:

Dreaming about the death of a loved one is never a sign that the person in question is about to die!

That is it for now for the how, why, when and where of my Blog. I will be updating the page as frequently as I can with dream updates.

Sam xxx