Saturday 26 July 2008

The Secret Meanings Of Dreams (Or Why You Shouldn't Eat Cheese Before Bedtime)

It looks like even the earnest flowery 'Interpret the Meanings of Your Dreams' books and websites are trying to get with the times. Or at least keep their source material relevant enough to maintain the rate of crystal sales.

A few years ago there would never have been any mention of what it means when you dream about zombies - not so much as a passing reference - leaving those of us who had seen Dawn of the Dead without any way to work out what our subconscious was trying to tell us.
Apart from 'have a zombie survival plan' of course.

Now you can find online dream dictionaries and the like that tell you that dreaming of zombies means that 'parts of your greater self are stalking you'*, whilst others suggest that it means that someone might be threatening you in real life 'emotionally, mentally or physically'**. Oh, and if you dream that you are a zombie it means you are 'not in touch with your humanity, compassion, feelings etc'***.
The bit where you are terrified of being ripped to pieces and communally devoured like a large dish of paella isn't addressed in the various entries for 'zombie'. You have to look at entries for 'cannibalism' for any hint of what the consumption of flesh might signify****.

Unfortunately these illuminating guides to the collective human psyche still dwell heavily on the meaning of individual symbols without giving you any clue as to how to combine and interpret them as a whole.
If waterfalls indicate 'goals and desires' and a unicorn means 'high ideals, hope and insight' does a dream about a unicorn by a waterfall mean that you've had an insight about your dreams and hopes or is your idealist unicorn thirsty for direction?
What if you barely notice either of them because you're too busy running from zombies?
The nerd in me wants a point-based scoring system where zombies are clearly trumped by monster trucks which therefore dictate the overall message of any dream that features both*****.

So despite having access to this new information I am still unable to determine which parts of my greater self are stalking me when I dream that I'm hiding in a butcher's shop while zombies rage around looking for meat and whether this reveals a self-destructive streak or a more than healthy dose of stupid.
And I've got even less to go on with the dream that starred a bungee-jumping Indiana Jones-esque sheep!

Maybe I should just stop eating so late at night.
Or start drinking less.
Or more.
Or possibly just accept that my dreams are crazy goobaloo nonsense and that I can't apply blanket or standardised interpretations to every item or event.

But seriously, if anyone could explain the dream with the bungee-jumping sheep that'd be awesome.



*Whatever that means!
**Thanks for the vague warning, I'll get right on that.
***Sociopaths Anonymous: Your membership card is in the mail.
****You are concerned about exploitation and submission/domination apparently. Nothing to do with being eaten alive at all. That'd be too simple.
*****That you should go out and commandeer a monster truck and mow down zombies!

Additional: Sure I could link to various dream dictionary websites but imagining hapless folk searching the interwebs randomly for dream interpreters and analysers is so much more rewarding.

No comments: