Funny you should mention dreams here on the Shroomery today. Last night I dreamt 3Dshroom came over and went swimming in the pool, even though it's closed for the season. He let loose these little spiders to "spread some Texas cheer" and by the end of the day there were HUGE, red spiders all around the house and yard. He kept saying that they get even bigger in Texas. WTF?
Later 3D seemed to disappear from the dream without notice or reason and I went to my cousin's wedding with my friends, where a belligerent drunk kicked my ex-boss in the stomach and he ended up dying. Then we met these girls who took us to this exclusive party full of snobs out in the forest. The girls ended up being the biggest snobs of all. Then I borrowed one of the snob's expensive high-tech future cell-phones and ended up breaking it by accident.
My dreams have gotten progressively weirder throughout my monthlong drug abstinence period.
But I don't think dreams are interperable in any practical way. i.e. I don't think the presence of lizards in a dream denotes sexual yearning or anything like that. I think dream dictionaries are pure bunk. People tend to dream about what they've been thinking about since they last slept, so it makes sense that objects of much thought, especially things people chronically stress over, would appear in dreams.
When I was in school I used to always have dreams about forgetting my homework whenever I knew I was neglecting an assignment. In that sense, dreams can have some useful meaning, but IMO dreams are for the most part just a mishmash of all the unresolved thoughts one experieces throughout the day.
But you are right, they do allow us to experience thoughts lying deep in our subconsciousness that may not see the light of day otherwise.
If you want to know more about my twisted subconscious, here is another notable, recent dream of mine:
I went travelling to Africa on my own (this probably comes from my constant thoughts about moving out west on my own in a week). Before I left, I decided to buy some drugs from a kid at the airport for some reason. When I got home, I opened the bundle he had given me and discovered it was heroin and marijuana. I decided I'd try the heroin because there was only a small amount, so I snorted some of it and immediately after I did, there was a knock on my bedroom door (which was the bedroom in a house I lived in ten years ago). I answered it and it was Anthony Keidis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. We talked about music and stuff for a while, and then he discovered my heroin stash. He gave me a stern lecture about heroin (he is a former heroin addict) but no matter what I said, I knew I was losing the repore I had built with him. Everything I said sounded like it was coming from the druggie on an after-school special. "I only wanted to try it once"; "I'm never going to buy it again"; "I seriously doubt I'll get addicted to this stuff." It was grim.
Heh.. I wonder what that dream was trying to tell me?
The funny thing is now I seem to be recalling the details of my dreams MUCH more clearly than ever before. The flow of the dream is often forgotten, but certain moments of certain dreams will stick with me forever.
Recurring themes or patterns in my dreams:
-Discovering that flying is pretty easy; I just run, but I run 'upwards' instead of horizontally. Makes sense.
-Gliding on the floor. The mechanics of this still aren't quite clear to me, but it's like I'm lying on my stomach, hovering a few inches or sometimes a few feet above the ground. Kind of like an air hockey table. I sling myself around with poles and trees. It seems so natural, like I've done it a million times.
-Being late for something or forgetting something important.
-World-wide holidays or festivals. These are strange. Usually it's just a day where everybody I see is doing the same thing because it's an estalished holiday, like garage sale day, or deer hunting day (WTF??)
-Greivous but painless injuries to myself. Usually they take the form of severed limbs or deep cuts. Once a boomerang hit my genitals and they fell off, complete with veins and squirting blood. They are always quite gruesome, but I'm never too concerned about them and they don't hurt.
-Meeting celebrities and spending the day with them. Almost invariably, I eventually say or do something that causes them to abandon me, or else they just abandon me on their own initiative. Usually they are second rate celebrities (Arsenio Hall, Corey Haim, etc.)
I think recurring themes can say a lot about someone, but I'm horrified to think of what these recurrances might indicate about me.
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it.
~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
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