Because learning about your brain and sleep can be fun . . .
When you call someone a “dreamer,” it’s something of an insult. Yet, when you call someone a “visionary,” that’s high praise. Why? What’s the difference? There’s not that much beyond the way the word sounds, the connotation it carries. To many people’s way of thinking, dreaming connotes pie-in-the-sky fancies. Impractical ideas. Something that doesn’t work…
Not every dream is symbolic of something, though many are. People tend to ignore dreams without symbols unless they’re an instance of deja vu where one has the feeling they’ve been somewhere or done something before. Dream journalers tend to talk about dreams with symbols more often. They’re more interesting because we learn from those dreams. They…
One can have all kinds of sex dreams. In your dreams, you might have sex with people you wouldn’t consider in real life. Multiple partners may show up. The dreams could feature people of the same sex, homeless people, powerful people, strangers, children, machines, objects, anyone, and anything. In dreams, after all, anything is possible.…
Recently, over a couple of weeks, more than half of the dreams one man who kept a dream journal featured the coronavirus in some way. He wasn’t alone. Lots of people around the world were dreaming about COVID-19. In his dreams, close friends were dying of the virus. Or he was lost back in 1918,…
The phone rung. The dogs barked. A gunshot went off. Whatever happened, you woke with a start. You’ve suddenly sat straight up in bed. Your sleep has been interrupted. The thoughts running through your mind melt away quickly. You now have forgotten most of your dream or were stopped dreaming in the middle of the…
Christmas is over but the Nativity story doesn’t end. On December 28 western Christianity celebrates a time when the Jesus’s family was saved by his stepfather. This incident came to be known as the Feast of the Holy Innocents. This incident as well as some other incidents in the life of Jesus’s stepfather, St. Joseph,…
Informally analyzing other people’s dreams is a whole lot like analyzing their handwriting or telling them about their personality by looking at their palm. It’s not science. None of the assumptions can be tested and they take a lot of leaps in logic. Don’t take it too seriously. Keep it fun. Take inspiration from other…
The subconscious has been known to pick up certain signals and hints the conscious mind misses. For example, when you meet someone and there’s something incongruous about what they say and the way they behave. That incongruity leads you to not trust them. Being in touch with your subconscious can help you zero in on the reasons for this feeling. It can even save your life.
In the Bible, God communicated with people in dreams. The angel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that she would bear the Savior. Another angel came to St. Joseph and told him of Herod’s plans to kill off the oldest son of every Jewish family. There are many other instances in both the Old and…
It has to be a thought thunk by every stick-in-the-mud who refuses to touch hallucinogens: I’m no fun. Here I am holding a regular job. Here I am fulfilling my responsibilities to my family and society. There they are. They’re tripping out. They sure look like they’re having a good time getting wasted. Damn them!…