Dreams
In superstitious ages and countries dreams were regarded very seriously. Every dream was supposed to have a meaning; and it was the business of astrologers and priests to interpret dreams. In the Bible story, Joseph was raised to the highest rank in Egypt by interpreting the dream of Pharaoh about the fat and lean kin. Dreams were generally looked upon as predictions of the future, warning of coming dangers or sorrows, or prophecies of coming good fortune. Dreams were believed to be supernatural communications from the divine powers, or the spirits of the dead, and so were divine revelations.
Educated people no longer regard dreams in this way. Some laugh at them as mere illusions, and not worthy of any serious consideration; but others find them interesting subjects for psychological study. For one thing, dreams prove that we are not completely unconscious in sleep. We are quite unconscious of our immediate surroundings. We see nothing, hear nothing, and know nothing of what is going on around us. Yet part of our brain is awake and conscious. This has led psychologists to believe that in all of us there is the sub-conscious or “sub-liminal” self—a self below the threshold of normal consciousness. It is this sub-conscious self that dreams when the conscious self is asleep.
It is interesting to try to discover the causes of dreams. Sometimes they are purely physical. A heavy supper which causes indigestion may give us a nightmare. A knock at the bedroom door may make us dream of a battle and the thunder of guns. One man dreamt he was walking near the crater of a volcano and his feet were burnt by the hot rocks; but when he woke up, he found his feet were pressed against his hot-water bottle.
Most dreams are really confused and disjointed memories of past events in our own lives. We can often trace a dream back, and find it was suggested by something we saw or heard or read about a few days before. For example, a lawyer, who had been thinking over a case late one night, dreamt when he went to bed of nothing but lizards. When he came to his study the next morning, he found that, while, he was thinking out his case, he must have been staring unconsciously at his clock, the case of which was decorated with the bronze image of a lizard.
Dreams refer to the past, not the future. They are not supernatural, but only the confused working of our own imaginations and memories.
