OPEN-MINDED: DREAMS

We all of us have dreams, don’t we, if you say NO, than either you are a incurable insomniac, or a chronic liar, but then, ‘for a chronic liar, his faith is unshakable in every lie he speaks, because for him, every word he utters is a, gospel truth.’ Maybe it is true for him; or a highly successful person may answer, these were his childhood dreams-in fact, in his childhood he may never had dreamt of this-a point blank lie and you ask a disgruntled, failure in his life, the answer would be, he had never ever dreamt in his dreams, that this would ever happen to him, after the sheer hard work, how could he have failed.

So from where do these dreams originate, are they meaningful, are they of any value to us, or are they just senseless, above all why do we dream? We have been puzzled by these questions, from the dawn of humanity, For instance, the Australian Aborigines believe that what we consider the realm of dreams is the real world (the Dreamtime), and the world we experience with our senses is a dream.

According to Sigmund Freud, dreams are spy holes into our unconscious. Fears, desires and emotions that we are usually unaware of make themselves known through dreams. To Freud dreams were fundamentally about wish-fulfillment. Even "negative" dreams (punishment dreams and other anxiety dreams) are a form of wish-fulfillment; the wish being that certain events do not occur. Very often such dreams are interpreted as a warning.

Freud believed that although our dreams contain these important messages, they are encoded - disguised. The unconscious mind doesn't speak any verbal language therefore it must communicate with us via symbols. Some of these symbols are near-universal, others very personal to us and our individual life experiences.

Carl Jung (1875-1961) put forth a theory of dreams which is quite popular today. Following in the footsteps of Sigmund Freud, Jung claimed that dream analysis is the primary way to gain knowledge of the unconscious mind. He says that the dream is a natural phenomenon which we can study, thereby gaining knowledge of the hidden part of our mind. The images are symbolic of conscious and unconscious mental processes.

But then, should we dream or should we not dream, of course one has to dream, parents they dream for their child’s future, based on these dreams they plan, draw a path, to lead their child towards success, same way the individuals as he or she grows up and marches ahead in life, have already dreamt of their would be achievements, based on these dreams, they have followed this path of fulfillment.

Just imagine, without those dreams, our world as it is today, would it had been the same, it were dreams, dreamt by so many scholars, philosophers, scientist, people from various fields and different walks of life, have made it possible and don’t forget those skeptics also. If you want to dream, than dream real big, why dreams of our solar system, why not the Universe, the bigger you dream, the more you will achieve, should be the mantra.