Hello, lovelies! It's time for another random non-writing blog.
So I'm a big fan of piecing together the meaning of my dreams - not because I think there's any kind of Answer to Life found in it, but because it tends to shed a fascinating light on my psychology and the way my subconscious connects ideas.
I am not, however, a fan of going to the Big Book of Dream Meanings and looking up the symbols in the book. Why? Because different symbols take on different meanings depending on the person's experience.
For example:
My first night in my new room at college, I woke up terrified out of a nightmare. In the dream, my "brother" (some random kid produced for the dream; at some points it was a female friend) and I were advancing through the levels of this sort of game, except it was real life. At the end of the dream, we turned to discover a woman behind us. She had been a sort of mentor of mine. I knew for a fact she was dead (I had in fact dreamed out her death, earlier). She was dragging along a sort of gold box on wheels (grated at the top) behind her. We tried to explain to her that she was dead, pointing out the fact that she was dragging this thing behind her (apparently it was her coffin, or it had her body in it) at which point she went into an insane rage and tried to kill us - the twisted psychology being that if she killed us, since we were the ones who had told her she was dead, she would be alive again. I twisted around the dream until I realized there was no way I could prevent my death, since there was a ghost witch after me, and this realization woke me up before my heart exploded or something.
First, let me analyze this dream according to my understanding of myself:
- I frequently have dreams about trying to avoid some person/institution/force that wishes me ill. I ascribe this to having a fairly high-anxiety, nonconfrontational personality. Because I tend to avoid problems/generate a lot of anxiety when I don't avoid them, I tend to have uneasy dreams where I'm running from/avoiding some antagonist.
- The whole "game" business represents order being imposed by some outside force: I have no control over order/chaos in the world of the dream.
- Ghosts, to me, represent the unknown, and because they are unknown, I have no way to defend myself against them. Basically ghosts = powerlessness in my mental shorthand. It's like a deux ex machina for my subconscious.
So a quick summary might be: This dream represents anxiety/avoidance stemming from a sense of powerlessness.
Now, let's look up these things in a dream dictionary (http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary/):
Chase:
"To dream that you are being chased signifies that you are avoiding a situation that you do not think is conquerable. It is a metaphor for some form of insecurity." So far, so good.
Video Game:
"To see or dream that you are a character in a video game suggests that you are feeling controlled and manipulated by others. You feel that you have no control over your actions or are not taking responsibility for them." Pretty close. Two out of three!
Ghost:
"To dream that ghosts are trying to kill you implies that you are ready to confront your past and your repressed emotions, despite how painful it may be. You are ready to move forward with your life and leave the past behind." Hey, look! Three for -- wait, what?
So why does the last one not match up with my own analysis?
It's because the underlying meaning of the symbol is different for me than it is for the average dreamer. According to the dictionary, ghosts = history, presumably because ghosts are figments from the past. I've already explained how for me, ghosts represent something entirely different.
Anyway, this is actually the least disturbing of the three dreams I've had recently that I can remember. They all seem to feature rather twisted/violent character relationships. It's really rather odd because I'm a relatively cheerful/peaceful sort of person, and these sorts of characters wouldn't normally occur to my waking mind. (I mean, it's good story fodder, but still...) I can't seem to pinpoint a trigger for the dreams, either, except maybe a general vague worry about being able to keep up with my course/workload this semester.
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