Please stop asking for people to interpret your dreams.. it's nonsense.

Although there are many archetypal coincidences between any 2 person's dreams, this is only because we all have somewhat similiar experiences in life. We all have similiar tv channels, radio stations, movies, governments, textbooks.. the list goes on and on.. . Just because someone has a similiar dream as you, does not in any way mean it holds the same significance to both parties.

Yes, but the direction of the causal arrow is confused in your passage. The source of dreams is also the source of art, religion, literature, drama - and quite a bit of politics, too. So, it is as unsurprising that "dream" imagery would show up in popular media (as it has, at least since those cave walls were painted millennia ago), as it is that "popular media" imagery would show up in dreams. There's only one source for both, the human mind, so where's the mystery?

That said, dreams with a high proportion of frankly archetypal content are actually rare among reported dreams. That disclaimer you were kind enough to remark favorably upon in the other thread is actually only the "tip of an iceberg" of my reticence to tell anybody else "what your dream means."

Personally, I don't even post on most dream reports, since it is so often clear that either (a) if there actually is archetypal content in the dream, then sniffing it out is way above my pay grade, or (b) the dream is simply the dreamer's thoughts about purely personal matters, about which I could not possibly know anything.

A typical person will dream about 70 years x 365 nights/year x 4 dreams/night ~ 100,000 dreams. Of those, maybe 10 will be "big dreams" (high proportion of archetypal content, with relatively small interpersonal variation). There probably is a reporting bias in favor of big dreams. Just that people still think about them years later increases the likelihood of eventually reporting them. But, there's little chance that I'm ever going to be overwhelmed with material to post about, based on what is maybe 1% of 1%, if that, of dreams experienced.

That is like saying if one person falls down a flight of stairs and breaks his leg, that the next person to fall down the same stairs, will have the exact same injury.
It is nonsense to believe such.

No, breaking your leg is abnormal and pathological. Many people never break a leg, even though everybody falls. Dreaming is an ordinary and healthy function. Everybody who lives long enough to acquire language has dreamt.

What it's like saying is something like "Two people who eat similar diets will get similar nutrients from what they eat." That allows for the possibility that there will be exceptions, while at the same time respecting the overall reliable performance of the basically shared human digestive system, analogous to the overall reliable performance of the basically shared human cognitive system.

reply to post by Dank513


It is not really stupid when you look at dreams from a psychological stand point, people places and things in dreams are symbolic.

You can learn a lot about yourself by analyzing your dreams.

Originally posted by Stormdancer777
reply to post by Dank513

 

It is not really stupid when you look at dreams from a psychological stand point, people places and things in dreams are symbolic.

You can learn a lot about yourself by analyzing your dreams.

but its the whole concept of this "objective psychological standpoint" that is flawed. Human psychology is far too variate for such fundamental attributions to be drawn from its unconscious imagery. especially given the extremely subjective inferences of someone who only has a vague understanding of your external self, never-mind the things only you could possibly know.

Its far too complicated to say "you can interpret peoples minds from dreams using archetypes"

Originally posted by Dank513
It makes absolutely NO sense to ask for someone else to interpret your dreams. They are YOURS and yours alone, only you can come to conclusions about the meaning they may have for you. Noone else has your subconcious, your experiences, or your life. So how could they possibly be able to interpret a dream you had? That is nonsense.

You're quite wrong. People have a right so share their subconscious ideas and thoughts, this is how we accumalate shared ideology and translation.

Also there's a word i wish you to study called 'perspective'.

Again I ask, Please stop asking others to interpret your dreams. It's ridiculous.

Why? Why should we listen to you and your stifling views?

But hey, that is just my opinion, a good one, but an opinion nonetheless.
If you want someone else to tell you something about yourself that you don't already know, you must REALLY not know who you are.

Hmm maybe.... just maybe that's why people ask others for opinion. It's called reflection and study. If you spent all your time alone, with just your thoughts, you wouldn't have a shared perspective.

I'm not saying don't share your dreams, by all means please do, that is what this is here for, but to have someone tell you what it meant? stupid.

Oh well cheers for your opinion. But it's not stupid.

Maybe i should ask you to study another word 'Onieromancy'

Its far too complicated to say "you can interpret peoples minds from dreams using archetypes"

If they're dreaming mostly archetypal material, then it's no more "complicated" than saying "You can interpret people's minds by listening critically to what they say about themselves."

Originally posted by eight bits

Its far too complicated to say "you can interpret peoples minds from dreams using archetypes"

If they're dreaming mostly archetypal material, then it's no more "complicated" than saying "You can interpret people's minds by listening critically to what they say about themselves."

But archetypes dont actually guarantee anything about a person, especially found within something as full of completely abstract imagery as a dream. It is just too personal. The issue extends into people saying things about themselves, because nobody is going to be willing to admit everything about themselves.

So, you can try all you want to get an idea of a person from what they say about themselves, but they will probably avoid facts or lie, so you will not have enough insights to draw any reasonable conclusions.

The same goes for dreams and archetypes. you cannot go on nothing but dream imagery and hope to give any even remotely relevant insights into that person.

Both are equally impossible for the exact same reason, and that is your own subjective interpretation of who your interpreting (which is flawed, or, on the internet, completely nonexistent).

[edit on 24-3-2010 by SPACEYstranger]

[edit on 24-3-2010 by SPACEYstranger]

But archetypes dont actually guarantee anything about a person,

There are no "guarantees" in any other contingent inference, why should dreams be different?

It is just too personal.

That's the point; the dreams I'm talking about are probably dreamt by maybe a hundred million people a year (working on that rough 1/10,000 being big dreams, and 6 billion dreamers). Every year, year after year. So, how "personal" is that, exactly?

So, you can try all you want to get an idea of a person from what they say about themselves, but they will probably avoid facts or lie, so you will not have enough insights to draw any reasonable conclusions.

Yes, if somebody lies about having dreamt the dream, then I have learned nothing about him or her. How tragic that on an internet forum, I shall have failed to learn anything about an anonymous liar whom I shall never meet.

Meanwhile, dozens of people who read the post really have had the dream, and they have the opportunity to learn something about themselves. Or not. Maybe they think about it, and move on to something else. So what?

The same goes for dreams and archetypes. you cannot go on nothing but dream imagery and hope to give any even remotely relevant insights into that person.

When I post on a dream, here's the disclaimer that I post along with whatever else I say:

Disclaimer: I don't interpret other people's dreams, but some dream motifs and characters are dreamt by many, many people, and I sometimes recognize those motifs and characters. I can tell you what several of the people who have dreamt dreams like yours have thought about their dreams, but only you can decide whether that has anything to do with your personal dream.

Read it for yourself. I don't make any claims about "knowing something" about the individual dreamer.

I have been on the web a lot longer than I have been here on ATS, and ATS isn't the only place I write about dreams. I get feedback from people whose dreams I post on. Some of them acknowledge that engaging in dialog about the millions of others who dreamt the same dream they did provided them remotely relevant insights into themselves.

Of course, maybe those people are lying about the discussion, just as they lied about dreaming the dream in the first place. Could be, right?

But I am a simple man. I think maybe some people who post their dreams are telling the truth.

reply to post by eight bits


wow, way to prove nothing.

i was not even adressing you, and had nothing to say about your ability to read dreams or your qualifications. but now that you have offered this, i will say that what you do is all good and dandy. If people want to believe that some guy who doesnt even know them can infer from their dreams (of which they think they know so much) so much more about them then they already know then that is their decision. My argument, and the origional argument, is that it is none-sense. It is like a fortune teller telling you your future when they know nothing about you. How much sense does that make? you can do what you do and believe it, but i am saying that i do not and for good reason.

what you think you do is make belief

wow, way to prove nothing.

Was there something about your post that led you to expect "proof" in rebuttal? You stated your opinion about something.

i was not even adressing you,

When you post here, then you address everybody who is participating in the thread.

My argument, and the origional argument, is that it is none-sense.

Great, so after you opine, then people who disagree with you get to opine in their turn. Isn't that pretty much how things work around here? What's the problem?

It is like a fortune teller telling you your future when they know nothing about you.

Really? Did you read my post? I make no claims, none, never, about the individual dreamer. And, the dreams I post about are not predictions about the dreamer's future or "fortune," nor even all that much about the dreamer's personal character. The dreams I post about are usually about what the dreamer shares with every human being that has ever lived.

And yes, sometimes all or part of that is news to the dreamer. Or at the very least, something that the dreamer finds worth discussing. Could even be that the dreamer derives benefit from the discussion without agreeing that the dream had the same meaning for them as for the other millions who have dreamt the same thing.

what you think you do is make belief

As the saying goes, dream on.

so you infer nothing upon the individual, but instead take like dreams and take them as like.... signs?

kind of like a terrot card reader uses the similar signs on her cards to infer a bunch of none-sense.

because people have similar imagery in their abstract, personal dreams you can draw some sort of reasonable conclusion from this?

what if one guy dreams about a cornfield because he is a farmer and they bear significance to him, and the next guy dreams about a cornfield because he likes to rape chicks in fields.

It seems like these like images in peoples dreams are all to likely considering the limited number of external stimuli that humans have the opportunity to be exposed to. theres only so many images to dream without getting wayyyy to abstract.

so, to draw connections between people who are completely dissimilar in every way other then that they are human because they had the same kind of dream seems flawed.

I just cant get around how you think you posses this dream knowledge. who gave you the book of dreams, complete access to the psyche and all its meaning. because you should go public with all this amazing psychology if its true.

so you infer nothing upon the individual, but instead take like dreams and take them as like.... signs?

kind of like a terrot card reader uses the similar signs on her cards to infer a bunch of none-sense.

You seem to have a very odd idea of what I do. Perhaps it will be more productive to postpone discussion of the matter with you until you've had a chance to read actual examples.

because people have similar imagery in their abstract, personal dreams you can draw some sort of reasonable conclusion from this?

Similar imagery, plot, characters, setting... yes, at some point you notice that it's the same dream as millions of others have dreamt, not merely some some casual intersection of imagery between two dreamers.

what if one guy dreams about a cornfield because he is a farmer and they bear significance to him, and the next guy dreams about a cornfield because he likes to rape chicks in fields.

What if, indeed? Are cornfields archetypal settings in your view? And in your example, are you saying that the farmer and the rapist cornfield-fetishist are dreaming the same dream? It's hard to tell, since you've said nothing about the dreams except their setting. If you can figure anything out from just one isolated element of a dream, then you are much better at this than I am.

It seems like these like images in peoples dreams are all to likely considering the limited number of external stimuli that humans have the opportunity to be exposed to. theres only so many images to dream without getting wayyyy to abstract.

That would also be true of waking life. So, can I confidently expect that there is no value in someone comparing their waking experience with the waking experience of other people in similar situations? After all, it is inevitable that some waking experiences will be shared, and there is nothing to be learned when that happens.

so, to draw connections between people who are completely dissimilar in every way other then that they are human because they had the same kind of dream seems flawed.

If the dream is about what the humans have in common, then however little that is in your estimation, that is what ought to be discussed when one of them reports having had the dream.

I just cant get around how you think you posses this dream knowledge. who gave you the book of dreams, complete access to the psyche and all its meaning.

I post on very few dreams, and the type of dream I do post on provides very little insight to the personal circumstances of the dreamer. So, "complete access to the psyche" is your contribution to the conversation, having nothing to do with anything I've said.

because you should go public with all this amazing psychology if its true.

It is already public, and has been for almost a century. News, and news to you, are two different things.


[edit on 24-3-2010 by eight bits]

It makes absolutely NO sense to ask for someone else to interpret your dreams. They are YOURS and yours alone, only you can come to conclusions about the meaning they may have for you. Noone else has your subconcious, your experiences, or your life. So how could they possibly be able to interpret a dream you had? That is nonsense.

I had a bad dream last night. All night long, I dreamt I was awake.
When I woke up this morning, nothing happened. Right after that, it continued to happen, and its been happening ever since.
What does it mean?

You can only think so many things in a day, I think dreams are the leftover bits!