Dreams - Signs of Reality
2014-04-30
Let's talk about the dreams. There are dreams that are beautiful wishes and desires for the future, dreams that we think during the day. And there are dreams that we dream when we sleep. Here I want to focus on the latter ones. The ones that are so often ignored, neglected and forgotten. As a quote says: "But those who think that visions and dreams are caused by indigestion, can easily sleep through the most valuable signs of reality."We know that the famous Russian chemist and inventor Dmitri Mendeleev created his own version of the periodic table of elements. However, what we don't know or forget often is that he saw the new periodic table in a dream. In "The Soviet Review" Journal issued in 1967 we can find Mendeleev's quote: "I saw in a dream a table where all elements fell into place as required. Awakening, I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper, only in one place did a correction later seem necessary."
An inspiring and influential novel "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" written by Richard Bach and published in 1970, contained fewer than 10,000 words, yet it broke all hardcover sales records since "Gone with the Wind". It sold more than 1,000,000 copies in 1972 alone. Information about the book you can easily find online, but you will probably not find out easily that the whole story was a result of series of dreams by the author.
Using common sense, dreams are usually explained as some unconscious or subconscious activity of the brain that sometimes can be related to what we did and thought during the past day or at some earlier time. Regular education does not teach us much about the dreams. I don't remember any class or subject in school nor in university where someone would try to point our attention to dreams. 1/3 of our lives are spent in sleep, shouldn't there be something significant in that activity?
This post is not an attempt to prove or demonstrate the significance of dreams, rather it is a hint or a suggestion to start paying more attention to what you dream at night. I know that a lot of us forget a lot of details of our dreams as soon as we wake up, and after awhile we may forget what we dreamed completely. If you put a piece of paper and a pencil near your bed and try writing down your dreams, like Mendeleev did, soon by reading your notes later you will discovered how well you forget the dreams that seemed so vivid and significant at the moment of awakening.
Through many years I became convinced that dreams may tell us a lot not only about our past and present, but also about the future. And I don't care or worry too much if science can or have proved and explained how it is possible to have some future information in our dreams. I am not going to wait for an official scientific proof that validates my dreams and allows me to pay proper attention to them. By that time I might be gone from this earth.
I like asking from time to time my different Chinese friends what they dream and whether they remember their dreams. I was amazed quite a few times how people, who may not look or appear very special, can have amazing and inspiring dreams. Some of them never even put any significance on their dreams, because nobody told them they can do it. Since we were trained by society in general to ignore our dreams, we also don't know very well how to explain and understand things and events that we see in our dreams.
Some of my most impressive dreams I have dreamed in China. During the first year in China I actually saw very distinctly a Chinese character in my dream. After waking up I was wondering why this character and what it meant. I never saw any other Chinese characters in dreams, only this one. But the memory of that character in dream was following me through all my studies in China. Even today I keep thinking what was the meaning behind that dream.
During my first years in China I had a dream that I dreamed repeatedly. In those dreams I saw that I have left China and I can not come back. After waking up I was always glad that I was still in China. I saw that kind of dream maybe more than twenty times. Certainly it is not difficult to understand that it reflected my wish to stay here longer and learn more.
When I left China after the studies, for a few years I kept dreaming time and time again that I am coming back to the same city, the same dormitory where I lived. However every time I saw that dormitory it was somehow different. The arranging was different, people were different, something strange was about that. And soon after waking up I would be disappointed that I am not in China. Please don't laugh, those who can't relate to this experience, I am not exaggerating, such was the attraction to this place.
However, after my final return here, and staying for another several years I started seeing completely different series of dreams. I dreamed that I was leaving Lithuania, my home country, and that I would probably never see it again. In that dream I felt all connections to my different friends in Lithuania, and I missed them knowing and feeling strongly that I may not see them again. It is because of those dreams that I realized that I have to accomplish something, to do something important that hasn't been done yet. The whole feeling that those dreams cause is beyond the description, and it is much more than I said here.
Now, the interesting part is, that it is because of those dreams that I started to realize how I miss forests, rivers, lakes, the blue sky, all my friends and other people there in Lithuania. Before I actually started seeing those dreams I was not aware of my longing, I was too busy with my life in China. I always remember a winter in Lithuania, when it was full of snow, everything covered in thick pure white color, and I lived in a little village house far away from the city. That's the symbolic image of Lithuania - a far away village house in a country side among forests.
Remember your dreams, they may carry an important message for you from within.
"body is afraid of the spirit" will get me thinking for days!
I didn't know it's bad to go through winows, sounds interesting. I always used the door- slipped in when I see it open ^^
And when I change places, I can't be sure where I am when I wake up, similar to your experience but doesn't necessarily mean I think of the previous place fondly. After coming back to China, several times I had dreams that I was still back in the house I stayed in Korea, and when I woke up it took me some time to notice that I came back ^^
Thanks for the comment! It is not only our brains, hearts also do a lot during the sleep.
I used to fly and visit some people through the windows in my dreams. Until I was told it is not good to go through the windows in your dreams. It is a bad sign or something like that.
Somewhere it was said that body is afraid of the spirit. Sometimes we are scared of what is real
Sleep is a speed recovery for the body, so of course it has a meaning! But our brains are still unsolved and nobody knows what exactly happens while our brains go through all the data received during the day and also past years.
Some people believe our souls leave the body while we sleep, and wander around or go somewhere we want to. I used to go in strangers' houses in my dreams, hoping noone would notice me, but the idea that my soul really did so is kind of scary ^^
There is a saying in China , “What you dream in night is about what you thought in the daytime ."
I have note down your dreams in my mind.
I wish you stay in the CD forum for as long as possible no matter where you are
I don't know how do you manage to make a comment on every blog that is made here!? But thank you. Nightmares are important too.
Ok . You have done dreams...now let's get on to NIGHTMARES!. You did a good post.
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