Dreams

7 Pages 1745 Words

We dream many dreams every night, but why do we dream; and what do they mean? “Dreams are a communication of body, mind and spirit in a symbolic communicative environment” (www.sleeps.com). To make that statement easier to understand, www.sleeps.com goes on to explain how dreams are a review influenced by factors in your life and spirit. Our brains are constantly active. Our minds are always in different states like sleeping, awake, drowsy, alert, excited, bored, concentrating, or daydreaming. Sigmund Freud believed “Dreams are keys to the most secret parts of the mind.” (Coren 24). Dreams always occur while we are in a type of sleep called REM (Rapid Eye Movement).
All the things you dream about are a reflection of your life; they reflect your feelings, thoughts, desires, and your fears. Man’s interest in dreams can be traced to the time of the ancient Greeks. “The people of the ancient world tended to believe that some dreams were sent by the gods to convey information to mortals” (Holroyd 44). They discovered “that a dream is not nonsense but information in disguise” (Holroyd 46). The Epic of Gilgamesh, written four thousand years ago, was one of the first known writings of dreams. It tells the tale of the experiences Gilgamesh has with his dreams. For example, Gilgamesh dreams that he is pinned to the ground by the weight of a god who has fallen on him. At another point in the story, he and his companion Enkinu climb to the top of a mountain that immediately collapses. These same kinds of images and situations are dreamt about by people of today’s time. The ancient Greeks even thought certain things in your dreams had certain symbolism. They thought that snakes showed a sign of sickness or the presence of an enemy, and if it was a powerful snake it meant a bad illness was coming (Holroyd 56). Dreaming of birds was also a sign from the gods. Birds symbolize different types of people. Birds also had an impor...