The Logic of Dreams
Dreams seem like they’re filled with random symbols and events. I mean, walking into your uncle’s house, which just happens to be located at an airport and finding your grandpa’s Cessna four seater airplane stored in a closet doesn’t make much sense at all. This seemingly random scene is gets even more bizaar and random when your uncle tells you to quit calling him by his name and call him “Grandpa.” The random things I just described are from a real dream scene and they are not random, they’re intentional.
Symbols and people in our dreams are representative of other significant things. For example, everyone’s first name has meaning, and that meaning draws out some of the logic from the events that person is involved in within the dream. But even knowing basic principles of symbols within dreams, it may still be a bit difficult to understand how any sense can be made from them. But I assure you there’s a logic to what you see in your dreams. Dream logic may not make any sense at first, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be understood.
One of the foundations of dream logic is that dreams are tailor made to the individual. This is why everyone’s dreams are filled with things personal to them. If you live in a place like Nebraska you’re not going to be dreaming about the ocean three times a week. You’ll be dreaming about a lot of open spaces, and perhaps cows tying to put their horns into your stomach. At least that’s how my dreams went.
What about you? I’m sure you’ll have little trouble identifying things that are personal to you in your drems, but how do you bein to make sense of it all?
One of the most basic aspects of dream logic is the principle of simplicity. It’s best to look at a dream scene as a whole and come up with one sentence that best describes it. Then, figure out who the dream is focusing on, and one or two subfocuses. From there, take a look at one or two prominent details.
But what do we do with the details of the dream I described above? Let’s take a look at a few of them.
First, an uncle’s house at the airport. It’s important to know that at the beginning of the dream the dreamer arrived at the airport and taxied to their uncle’s house. Instead of focusing your attention on why the house of the dremer’s uncle has a house at an airport, ask this: what is the simplest way to describe what is happening here in one sentence? When I look at the dream I see convenience. It’s very convenient to have a relative’s house just off a runway so when your grandpa’s Cessna lands it can pull right up to the house.
That thought ties right in to the thought of the Cessna being stored in the uncle’s closet. A storage place for an airplane at an airport is called a hanger. You just happen to find hangers in closets, so then we suddenly have word play at work here.
As you follow the thoughts that result from simply describing what the scene presents, you’re carried into the next thought and the next thought and the next thought. See if you can follow the rest of the dream about the uncle who wants the dreamer to call him “grandpa” and comment what you discover.
EB
Photo credit: TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ via Foter.com / CC BY-SA